As a Managed Service Provider (MSP), you know that your success as a business is dependent on your employees. This means hiring and training them to be successful and setting the right metrics for you to measure their performance. It's not an easy task, but it can be done with some planning and proper assessment of key metrics to build the right team and attain your business goals.
In this blog post, we'll discuss how to set the right MSP hiring and training metrics so that you can motivate your employees towards success!
In an MSP business, you'll likely have different types of employees, including technicians, salespeople, and managers. While every role requires a different skill set, some common hiring metrics can be applied to all positions.
First, you'll want to consider the employee's role and what kind of skill set is needed. For example, if you're looking for a technician, you'll need someone who has the technical skills and experience in IT. When considering candidates and looking for new employees, you'll want to look at their skills, experience, and training.
Here are some hiring metrics to consider when looking for new MSP employees:
You'll want to get an idea of how long a candidate has been in their current role, and ideally, the position they're applying for. The length of time someone is at their job can give you an idea of how much experience they have with that type of work.
One hiring metric to consider when looking at potential employees is how long it's been since they received their certification. If they're up-to-date on the latest technologies and trends, that's a good sign.
Similar to the point above, you'll want to consider how long someone has been in their industry. Someone who is new to an MSP environment may not be a good fit for your business if they don't have much experience with managed services or working on customers' sites.
By looking at these metrics when hiring employees, it will help ensure that you hire the best employees and maintain a motivated team.
Many MSPs focus on technical skills when hiring. However, it's important to include soft skills during the hiring process. Technical skills are something that people can develop. However, soft skills such as communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking are harder to teach and require a different approach. Moreover, they are essential for employees in customer-facing roles such as closing deals with clients, customer service help desk, and service desk as these require customer interactions.
MSP's service offerings rely on their employees, and by ignoring soft skills when hiring, you risk missing out on potential hires that may not have the most technical know-how but could be excellent in seizing new opportunities, managing business operations, and handling customer relations.
On the other hand, in terms of the hiring process, here are the key metrics you'll want to keep in mind:
This metric measures how effective your recruitment process is. It's calculated by dividing the number of hires by the number of applicants. You want to aim for a high hiring ratio, which means you're recruiting the best talent.
Time to fill in the amount of time it takes from when a position is opened until an applicant is hired. You want this metric to be as short as possible so that you're not losing potential candidates due to the slow hiring process.
Measuring applicant quality ensures that you're bringing on board the right people for your team. One way to do this is through reference checks or assessment tools like personality tests.
Getting a timely response from potential hires is important, as you want to move quickly when hiring someone. Measuring your and your applicant's response time ensures that there are no delays in the recruiting process, and you can get qualified applicants for open positions fast.
The employee churn rate is the number of employees who have left your company within a given time period. This metric is important to track as it can help you identify any issues with your training program or the way you're onboarding new employees.
First-year attrition is a metric that measures the number of employees who have left your company within their first year. It's important to track this because it can help you identify any issues with employee turnover and retention, which may impact your business growth in the future. Besides, additional staff also costs money, so a high turnover rate means that not only is the company losing good talent but is also continuously incurring costs to replace them.
The employee satisfaction metric measures how happy employees are at the company. You can do this by having employees complete surveys or interviewing them to get their feedback on various aspects of the company, like management and work-life balance.
The employee engagement rate is similar to the satisfaction metric. It measures how happy workers are at your MSP business; however, the main focus of engagement is on how motivated employees are to work and do their job well.
Measuring factors like morale and motivation help you identify the issues that may be affecting your business' productivity levels. This metric is important because if workers aren't engaged with their tasks or feel demotivated at work, they're more likely to quit in the near future.
Training is an important part of the MSP hiring process, as it's essential that you're giving your employees the knowledge, data, technology, and access they need to be successful in their roles. It requires a lot of resources and planning on your end, but there are key metrics for measuring training success:
This metric measures how much time is being spent on training per employee. You want to ensure that employees get the right amount of training to be productive as soon as possible.
This metric looks at how many employees have completed the training program. Ideally, you want a high completion rate because employees are learning and absorbing the information.
Another important metric to measure is trainee satisfaction. This looks at whether or not employees feel they're getting what they need from the training program and helping them learn new skills and grow in their careers.
While there are many training metrics to consider when evaluating how your MSP business is doing, the training success rate looks at how effective your program is in engaging employees and helping them learn new skills.
By using these hiring and training metrics, you'll be able to set goals for your team and measure their success over time. Implementing these measures will help you create a strong foundation for your MSP business and ensure that your employees are getting the training and support they need to be productive and successful.
Most MSP business owners know that finding and securing the best talent is essential to success, but it can be challenging to know where to start. If you're looking to secure the best talent for your MSP business, it's important to focus on creating a strong hiring and training process.
Here are some quick tips to help you get started:
Make sure you have a clear job description in place so candidates know what they would be doing if they were hired.
Conduct an in-person interview that is tailored to each role to get a better sense of the candidate's skills and experience.
Document the sales process to create a sales training course for new hires.
Train employees properly once they're hired; invest the time and resources necessary to make sure they're up to speed with company policies and procedures.
Measure employee satisfaction and engagement rates regularly so you can identify any issues early on and take corrective action if needed.
Cultivate a healthy company culture that encourages creativity and innovation as a company's culture also plays a crucial role in the type of talent it attracts.
For higher-level positions, consider using a skills-based assessment to measure the candidate's ability to solve problems and think critically.
By focusing on these key areas, you'll be able to create a strong foundation for your MSP business, hire the right people for the job, refine your sales processes, and most importantly, add value to your clients' businesses which is exactly what MSPs are supposed to do.
Disclaimer: The opinion of Insercorp Water Cooler Bloggers are of their own and do not reflect the official position(s) of Insercorp LTD
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