Freedom from the Personal Toll of Leading an MSP

Sep 20

How are YOU doing?

Hey everyone! Fall is approaching, and soon I can welcome you to my neighborhood in my Mr. Rogers sweater. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy temps in the 70s (F) and try to enjoy the outdoors a bit more.

Of course, I’m not going to let grass grow under Advanced Global’s feet while I do so, and you can’t let the grass grow under the MSP, either. So, I promise at the end I am going to give you some Service Delivery training.

But first, I have a question.

How about you MSP leaders? How are you doing?

Really. Be honest. How do you feel? How is your head?

I’ve been talking about strategically obsessing on the MSP you lead by Focusing, Caring, and Committing. We’ve talked about the need to say no a lot more than you say yes, get up early, and schedule your day out for focused productivity.

BUT………..

What if you just can’t?

With the changing of the seasons come reflection, both personal and business. John called on Saturday and needed to talk. He wasn’t getting the business he used to, and his surplus funds were gone. He’s dipping into the credit cards to pay the bills. He sees the cliff coming and is scared. His marriage is not good, and his stress is evident. Through a follow-up conversation on Monday, it sounded like he was lost on how to work on his business and was looking at finding some small work here and there in other careers to fill in the holes. But that terrified him-what if the side jobs got in the way of his business and he lost more work? His wife was already working an extra job to paper the cracks, so no extra there.

Last week I talked about how life, like a classic TV show, has an A and a B (and sometimes a C) story. You might think the A story (the most important) is the MSP. Nope, not even close. You own or lead an MSP to provide better service than the other guy, of course! Many of you love the job, the blinky lights and believe you would do it for free. But the A story is about having a fulfilling and rich life for you and your family. The B story is kicking butt in the MSP so you can live the A story.

Now, anyone who knows me knows I can help kick butt in your MSP. I’ve got programs for MSPs of any size, the Gladiator’s Community, weekly calls to answer your questions, and a team of Autotask, Datto RMM, and IT Glue pros to fill in the blanks. If you’re willing to work hard, I will roll up my sleeves and work right there beside you in the trenches of growing an MSP business so your entire team can lead a satisfying, fulfilling, and financially rewarding life.

But I am not in any way a mental health professional. Certainly, the Ask the Experts weekly calls sometime feel like therapy sessions for Service Coordinators, Managers, and owners, and everyone on the call offers great advice, but sometimes you need a professional.

John needs a financial coach, a business coach, and marriage counseling. His men’s group is working on getting him hooked up.

What about the rest of you? What about your Teams?

Dave Sobel, a former MSP owner and Channel Chief and host of the podcast The Business of Tech. He did a show back in 2021 that provided some staggering statistics:

8 in 10 technologists say their job became more complex during 2020 because of rapid innovation and a sprawling technology stack.
89% of technologists say they feel immense pressure at work.
84% of technologists found difficulty switching off from work.
68% of tech workers say they are more burned out than when they worked in an office.
60% of tech workers are working more hours than before the pandemic.
22% of managers are at high risk for burnout and PSD.

Dave’s stats are from 2021. 2024 doesn’t look like we are seeing things get much better.

This article from The Conversation is only two months old and has some fascinating insights:

Constant exposure to mobile phones during non-work hours (referred to as "phubbing") damaged the support and communication between couples at home.

Employees who engaged less with their phones at home were able to enjoy the support and communication of their partner better. As employees, they felt more proactive and energized at work.

Focusing on the times when positive experiences from home cross into the work domain, we found that supportive colleagues made employees more engaged at work.

Employees who constantly feel connected develop signs of burnout, exhaustion and depletion over time.

So, what do we do?

We can certainly talk about it and help remove the taboo. We can implement an employee assistance program through a local provider or a PEO like Insperity. We can hold meetings to understand what is on our Teams’ minds, keeping in mind it may have nothing to with work. The bottom line is our people need help, and we owe it to them to do everything possible to support them. We can provide the time off they need-real time off, with no laptops on the beach. We can pay them fairly. We can ensure the Service Coordinator is covered outside their working hours. And we can stop overloading Techs through a better process.

Whatever the reasons for the overloaded tech situation, finding a solution requires a multifaceted approach that accounts for Ticket Count, Ticket Workflows, the Tech Skillset, and a greater understanding of ‘Overdue’ in the context of ticket status. Because we’re talking about data that’s fluid and changing at a moment’s notice, we can turn to Autotask dashboards as the solution/tool to resolve this complicated situation.

It’s very easy to construct a workload dashboard, one that shows:

Total Open Tickets by tech
Total Ready to Engage Tickets by tech
Total Overdue Tickets per tech
Total Estimated Hours per tech
Total Estimated Hours due today per tech

Now, the first three widgets give a clear picture of ticket counts per tech; the next two provide information on the estimated work hours on each tech.

Two other widgets can help provide a better understanding of the team workload for today: the Scheduled Service Calls Today and Today’s PTO. It also helps to have the SLA Summary widget on the workload dashboard when it comes to the rebalancing process.

With this tool in-hand, one can start reading the story the dashboard is telling. For example, which tech has the most Open Tickets, Overdue Tickets, and most Estimated Hours Due Today? This scenario would highlight when a Tech needs workload rebalancing.

During the next chapter in this story, note which techs have the least Open Tickets, Overdue Tickets, and less than 6 Estimated Hours Due Today. These will be the go-to techs as we try to rebalance the workload.

What’s Next

Before moving on in the process, it is helpful to note how Projects and Installations play into this scenario. Projects, and to a lesser degree, Installs, have very few tickets and may or may not have hours due today. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they must be worked on today; in which case, they must be scheduled with a future appointment in a tech’s Autotask calendar.

The third chapter in the story of analyzing the Workload Dashboard is to note who is scheduled to work directly with clients today and who’s out on PTO, which informs who is and who isn’t available to take work from an overworked tech.

From here, the process gets easier - but it’s no less complicated. Moving any ticket would be helpful, but which ticket would be the most helpful? A deeper dive is needed to answer this question. Having the SLA automation fully managing all open non-project tickets is essential.

Tickets

There are two lists of tickets that need to be compared and triangulated to know which ticket is best to be moved: the tickets coming up on Next SLA Event Due Date from the SLA Summary Widget and the tickets in the overloaded tech’s Ready to Engage widget.

In comparing these two lists, tickets about to be missed are the ones that may be best to move to another tech. Before making the final decision on which ticket(s) to move, evaluate what the overloaded Tech is working on, to determine how soon they could engage on the ticket(s), and if it is going to be behind SLA, then continue to consider moving them.

If the techs have mastered the best practice of updating ticket status as they engage and disengage, this can be done without disturbing the tech – and if not, message them, without apology.

Once the ideal candidate ticket to-be-moved has been identified, it’s critical to then consider the skillset of each tech to ensure the ticket will be handled properly.

In very nimble 2-3 tech shops, this is typically simple and top-of-mind for everyone (hopefully without disturbing anyone to confirm). As the MSP scales up, having a tech skillset matrix can be very informative in simplifying this process.

The Service Coordinator can use the tech skillset matrix to determine the best available tech for the ticket, ensuring they help to resolve the overload situation - and not creating another overworked tech.

Once the ticket has been moved, the Service Coordinator should continue using the Autotask Workload Dashboard as described above until the work is distributed as evenly as possible.

Conclusion and Helpful Resources

Obviously, Tech burnout is just one facet of a potential mental health issue, but it’s the one where you, as an Owner or Service Manager, have the most control over, so it’s the one we have spent the most time on.

Remember, your people are the most important asset of the business, and good people are very hard to replace.

And if you are an MSP owner or Senior leader, you’re even harder to replace. I want you to obsess about your MSP and help your B story improve your A story. I can’t do that without you. So, if you need help, stop making excuses – Get it NOW! Call your Employee Assistance Program, talk to a trusted friend, call your Pastor, or check out the National Alliance on Mental Illness guide on finding a mental health professional.

Stephen & Co

Resources: 