Your team of technicians is the bread and butter of your managed IT services business. Because your MSP business relies heavily on the critical functions your technicians perform, it is your job as the owner or leader to ensure your techs are as efficient and productive as possible. When you’re able to maximize your team’s potential, service delivery and growth margins will improve in tandem—not to mention you’ll empower your technicians to expand their skillsets and careers.
So, what are the most effective ways to avoid technician burnout and use your resources to your best advantage? Upping your management game and growing business requires the right mentality, tools, and behavior. The following four tips will guide you in your pursuit of getting the most out of your team and paving a scalable future:
As technology continues to evolve, so too should your team of technicians. While they were added to your team because of their particular level of expertise, there is always room to learn and grow.
As a business owner or technical leader, it’s your responsibility to ensure that your employees are equipped with the proper skills that allow them to be most effective in their day-to-day. Whether a team member is just starting out, or looking to take the next step in their career, you should support their skill development by making technician training and certifications a part of your company culture. Creating an environment that encourages your team to gain more knowledge demonstrates how you are invested in their success, and it will help your business in the long-run. When techs can get up to speed quickly, the quality and quantity of their work will increase—not to mention they’ll be set on the path to expanding their career and gleaning greater value in the future.
A good manager will make employees feel like a valuable part of the team, but a better manager will always be mindful of their personal and professional well-being. When technicians feel as though they are a simple cog in the wheel, it can lead to decreased work satisfaction and increased turnover. As a manager, you can combat this with two simple strategies.
First, be more trusting in your team’s abilities. It might be tough to loosen your control, but when you avoid micromanaging and give your technicians more ownership, they will feel empowered to perform higher caliber work. To that point, it’s important to keep balance in mind. Make your techs feel important without overworking them.
This brings us to our second strategy; recognize the great work team members do and reward them for it! When you take the time to note major achievements, it shows your team that you look at them as more than just a line item or a figure behind a desk. Also, focusing on work-life balance, supplying your team with the right tools, and even offering telework as an option, can all make their job more enjoyable and rewarding.
Do your employees have everything they need to do their job well and efficiently? Sometimes, you have to stop and ask yourself if the way you’ve been operating—such as the way your ticketing system works—is truly garnering the best results possible. If your techs are stuck constantly parsing through tickets and alerts, they’re going to get easily burnt out as it’s real waste of their valuable (and expensive) time! Instead, the right technology or integration could breathe new life into your operational efficiency. Reevaluating the tools and technology you use is a great exercise to ensure your team’s and business’ success. The goal is to not miss anything—for every alert to be resolved in a timely manner—and to avoid jumping from system to system and risk errors. By integrating your ticketing system with an automated service operations platform, your information can sync in real time, creating a more efficient and seamless workflow and making life much easier for your team.
The key to extracting the most from your team and propelling business success is by maximizing your techs’ time, which can be achieved when MSPs adopt an outsourced model and work with a smarter IT platform. Look for a platform that remotely monitors and manages alerts and combines an on-demand workforce so that priorities can be properly sorted, your staff can be free of tedious tasks, and every second can be used wisely.
When your in-house technicians can offload the mundane details of their job to a platform that can absorb the technical ‘heavy-lifting,’ you’ll be able to allocate your assets toward revenue-driving projects that increase your profit margins and grow your business. Even when it comes to simplifying backup management, the right IT management platform will streamline all systems so that no valuable time or data is lost.
Keeping these four important points in mind will help you enhance efficiency, improve productivity, and keep your team on its toes without losing momentum. If you’re looking for more tips and best practices on how to grow your MSP business, visit Continuum’s MSP blog here!
