Employee Engagement Series

Previously, we published an article titled “Simplifying Employee Buy-In…” (click the link to read), which was great overview of some of the typical components in a company culture that facilitate positive employee engagement.  This article is the third in a series intended to unpack those concepts a bit further.

Training and Support

Training and support sounds like something you sometimes buy with a new software package, but that’s not what we are thinking in this context.  This is about people development, which is one of the greatest ways to maintain a strong company culture.  We should point out that this article assumes you are a Technology Services Provider.

Training – The Employee Benefit that Gives Back

You hire technical people who do very technical things and one of the things that technical engineers love is to advance their skills.  There isn’t an industry, other than maybe medical, where this counts more.  So, what is the training and development plan you have for your team?  If it’s something like – “I let them break stuff in the back room once in a while”, that’s not going to cut it.

Product Standards – Actively moving your clients to a set of product standards for desktops, servers(cloud), firewalls, switches, wireless, security, etc. is critical to success for your employees, for your clients and for your bottom line. You can’t effectively train your team if you expect your technicians to support 10 different firewall brands, as an example.

• • • The irony here is, if you ask 10 different engineers what firewall brand you should support, you will probably get at least 5 different strong opinions. It won’t work to standardize unless you invest in the training for your team (and communicate why it matters).  The benefits are well worth the investment.  Most training can be funded by distributors or manufacturers—often including NFR equipment for hands-on testing, training, and lab use.
    • There are numerous other benefits to training, such as:
      • Better discounts.
      • Vendor referrals.
      • Premier support (bypass level 1 with manufacturers).
      • Easier quoting and more effective sales – which typically results in less time to quote delivery, which clients like.
      • Ultimately, it will result in lower support costs so your managed service agreements will show improved margin over time while you improve client experience.
    • So, what are you waiting for? Set your standards, train your team and begin to religiously defend these standards with your clients at every renewal/upgrade.

Technical Certifications and Role Based Development Paths – Having some defined career paths for your team may seem like you are putting yourself at risk of having to advance your team at their discretion, but that’s not really the case. The intent here is to provide a framework that helps you manage expectations and set career goals with your team that is motivating for them.  For instance, if someone wants to advance from Systems Engineer I to Systems Engineer II, you should have a defined set of criteria that is required to make that move (noting that these promotions are still subject to role availability in the company).  Some examples to consider are Network+ certification or Microsoft Azure Administrator certification or both; AND have them complete some sort of customer service / communications training (might be as simple as reading the book) like 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Emotional Intelligence, or Dale Carnegie Quality Customer Service.  Providing these career path options are a great way to make sure you retain great talent.  It’s also a way to make sure your talent is not standing still.  Here are some additional suggestions to consider:

• • • • Don’t fall into the trap where you fear investing in them because you might lose them to another company. Losing an employee or two that is advancing their skills is always better than keeping an employee that is quickly becoming obsolete.
      • Leverage a tool like Pluralsight to provide your team a one-stop shop for training (beyond the stuff provided by your manufacturers). Check with your primary distribution partner for discounts on this licensing.
      • Schedule time on your engineer’s calendars for continuing education. Every engineer says they need more training, but many aren’t willing or self-disciplined enough to block the time proactively.  Take that excuse away by reserving some time on their calendar during the golden hours.  When you do that, it opens the door for you to set a target date for completion that might require them to spend some personal time on it as well.  This way you are both investing in their individual development.

Support – It’s More Than a Hot-Line for Help (but that’s a great place to start)

For a technology services company who is in the business of providing support, it may seem odd to talk about support for your team, but there is nothing odd about it.  If you are in the support business, you are in the business of creating positive client experiences and outcomes.  Clients really don’t care how you get there.  Successful companies create a platform for their people to get the support they need so they, in turn, can provide a rock star experience for clients.  This is another great company culture and employee retention strategy.  When the team feels like they don’t have their backs against the wall with no place to turn, they will thrive and in turn gain higher marks and better referrals from clients.  Here are some tips for providing support that makes a difference for your clients and employees:

• • • Back to those product standards we mentioned earlier– leverage those standards and encourage your clients to get on board. When they know your team is better trained on the standard, this can be a motivator – they want you to be successful too – it’s a win-win.  Make sure your standard vendors know that this is what you are doing and leverage this to demand better support.  Then encourage your team to use it!  Technical people love being problem solvers, so they aren’t always quick to ask for help (frankly, most of us aren’t) – successful leaders will encourage and celebrate this kind of behavior, which brings us to the next critical point.
    • No Superhero’s! This is counter intuitive, but it’s imperative that we create a world where we don’t have to depend on superheroes to keep clients happy and functioning.  It’s actually a really big red flag for your business if you do.  The idea here is you want your best engineers training and building up your other team members and documenting and sharing what is in their heads.  It is critical when you have people who fall into this category that you start rewarding and recognizing the right behavior.  Creating dependency is wrong behavior – creating ‘clones’ and self-help tools is right behavior.
    • In this same way, you must encourage questions and team support. Encourage your team to treat each other as equally important to your clients.  When your team helps each other, ultimately, you are improving service for all your clients.  Setup a Teams® channel for collaboration, and encourage people to ask their peers, open a ticket with vendors, get second opinions and thoughts.  Reward quick, effective responses to clients – and deemphasize that they have to be the one with the answer. Instead, they should be the one who finds the best answer, the quickest.  That’s the gold nugget!

Take One S.  Now

As we continue to point out in these articles, pick one thing from this and implement it today so you don’t get bogged down trying to do it all right away.  Think about this article as building blocks in order of priority.  Product standards first, then get the training machine going, then start developing the peer help and accountability culture. This requires that you as a leader allow yourself to spend some time working on the business rather than working in the business all day every day.  It’s a tough transition to make but when you make it, you will never want to go back!