The Great Resignation. The Great Redundancy. Quiet Quitting. Fake Remote Working.
All the above show how the workplace is evolving – people quitting jobs that they no longer enjoy; being let go by employers attempting to rein in costs; avoiding workloads that they see as above and beyond what they should be doing; and even pretending to do work when little to none is actually being done.
And yet, organizations are reporting a shortage of suitably skilled talent in the market. There is a disconnect, and MSPs are in a strong position to help out: as long as they get the messaging right.
Demonstrate the value of automation
Resignations are often caused by employees being unhappy with too many areas of their work. Generally speaking, it is often the day-to-day grind of carrying out mind-numbing tasks that are below their actual levels of competency. Many of these workers are the sort that an organization is fighting hard to keep. They are people with skills that are underutilized. Organizations do not want to employ lower-skilled people to take on the tasks, as this would mean an additional cost, just when they are trying to lower overall costs. Instead, they should be looking for ways to move the low-level tasks out of the way.
Automation is the way to do this and it is an area where MSPs excel at. Target sales messaging that highlights how an MSP’s service can free up valuable time for those highly skilled, but underutilized, human resources can be a great way to drive additional business.
With redundancies, the organizations are in the position of having to identify who they can remove from the organization while remaining effective. If MSPs can offer services that can provide insights into processes and task flows, it can be use to advice where automation can be introduced to reduce human input – and thus identify which employees can be leverage for higher value tasks.
Focus on efficiencies, not redundancies
However, simply messaging such services as an aid to making employees redundant rarely works. Instead, focus on achieving effectiveness and efficiency combined with getting more done using fewer resources is far more business friendly. It is also more likely to be used by employees themselves, as they can see how they can free up their time to do more interesting things if they have the requisite skills in place.
With quiet quitting, employees just stop going beyond the main aspects of their job description, focusing only on what they must do to meet expectations. For many organizations, this means that areas of advanced work, such as innovation and invention, become lost. Few job descriptions includes being innovative and inventive as key traits. When enough employees quiet quit, organizations can fall into staying status quo, rather than actually competing adequately in the market.
Show how work can be made more enjoyable
Again, for MSPs, it is a case of making the job more enjoyable for those looking at quiet quitting: getting rid of unnecessary paperwork and process-based bureaucracy; providing services that enable the employee to take fresh looks at areas without having to jump through too many hoops. Areas such as machine learning, data analysis, artificial intelligence, zero-code apps and so on can be messaged here to make an employee feel better about their current position.
With working from home (WFH), it can be tempting for employees to lose focus and not fulfil the work that is required. Many MSPs can provide tools that can track tasks that are being carried out by remote workers – but this may not be enough. One of the main areas that can make WFH disliked by many is the sense of isolation. The lack of the social aspects of the office can be hard and can make employees less inclined to work.
MSPs should be able to provide services that enable remote collaboration, such as audio and video services, combined with team capabilities that better enable information sharing and coworking.
Provide options
Some MSPs will be able to address all these different areas through their portfolio. And indeed, some services will be able to address all the areas. MSPs must therefore ensure that the right messaging is attached to the services to be able to attract organizations focusing on each area. An MSP’s website must enable prospects to be able to easily identify which services will best help them in the areas they feel that they need help, while also offering them the options to take different approaches if necessary.
All the above should make sense to a reasonably well-adjusted organization. However, in many cases, resignations, and quiet quitting, in particular, are driven by a perception of a toxic culture within the organization. Although a harder area for an MSP to address than straightforward process and task improvements, the provision of some guidelines on how organizations can be more competitive and effective within their markets with better internal cultures, can possibly help those with a more open mind.
Empower employees
Here, messaging such as how effective sharing of information, and how those involved in the information feeds should be given recognition, can help in decision making. Also, providing guidance around how flatter management structures can speed up decision making (while, incidentally, enabling whole layers of structure to be removed from payroll) can also create more dynamic environments where employees can feel more empowered.
For a good MSP, it should not boil down to which sort of employee or organization (apart from where vertical skills are demonstrated) is being targeted. Instead, it should be how messaging ensures that there is the maximum capability to drive revenues through effective sales.
Photo: Dan Rentea / Shutterstock
