The elephant in the room MSP? Mental Health
Time out. We need to cover these topics today:
The elephant in the MSP? Mental Health.
Burnout. The Problem is VERY Real in IT.
Staggering stress stats prove a looming problem
What’s causing all the overwhelm?
How can we help our overworked Techs?
Autotask to the rescue! Leverage it.
Consider your Techs’ skillset, too.
There is an easier way…
Additional mental health info & resources
Greetings, Autotask Gladiators. I am very glad you are here.
I know you were expecting another “how-to” on growing your business and increasing profit, but I want to take a moment and interrupt this series to discuss something that is very important to those in the MSP industry: Mental Health.
Burnout. The Problem is VERY Real in IT.
Last week we were at ChannelCon and surprised to see two sessions in the Cybersecurity track that discussed burnout and mental health in IT.
Scott Scrogin’s story was especially eye-opening. And a couple months back, Huntress dedicated their “Fireside Chat” for the month to handling mental health in the MSP world. Those sessions and some of the great conversations in our Thursday and Friday FREE “Ask the Experts” Zoom sessions have prompted this discussion.
Huh? Why are cybersecurity sessions covering mental health instead of that new tool or technique to fight the bad guys? And why is this my problem?
It turns out that increased cybersecurity threats, the pandemic, and shortages of IT workers have everybody stressed out, including your non-security focused staff.
Dave Sobel is a former MSP owner and Channel Chief and host of the podcast The Business of Tech. He did a show back in 2021 and 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.
Let’s add to that with one of the slides from Scott’s ChannelCon presentation (I would be happy to send the slide if you email us):
“Cybersecurity operations and IT Organizations are often run as a team sport. Therefore, it stands to reason that the captains and coaches of those teams have a moral obligation to ensure the mental health of the team players.
Key reasons for organizations to invest in their employees’ mental health include retention, employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, product quality, to avoid burnout, excess turnover, and most importantly, helping preserve a strong mental health posture for employees.
We are all in this together. The first step is talking about it and reducing the stigma.”
There’s a problem lurking in the MSP Industry…
Well, there you are, the stats prove it. The MSP industry has a problem and it’s getting worse.
So, let’s talk about what we can do quickly to help our Techs. From the presentations we’ve attended, we know that overloading a Tech or giving them the wrong tickets can burn them out.
So how can we fix that? (Please note, I am not a healthcare professional, so do not take this as medical advice and seek professional treatment at the first sign of a mental health issue. I am including several links to resources at the end).
Those of you who are members of our Gladiator Community may have seen the June 14th posting about Jason. Jason is a hard-working tech who does a great job and is generally quite efficient. But lately, Jason’s productivity has been down. Way down. What’s going on? Jason has too many tickets!
Techs are overworked. What is to blame?
The reason a tech like Jason is overworked, has too many tickets, and is struggling to keep up, while other techs seem to be coasting could be because:
The tech is very good and is hogging all the tickets
The tech is struggling and is being assigned tickets outside their skillset
They’re a project engineer who doesn’t prioritize escalated tickets
They’re the owner’s or customer’s favorite go-to tech
Whatever the reasons for the overloaded tech situation, finding a solution requires a multifaceted approach:
Ticket count by itself doesn’t tell the whole story, since estimated hours need to also be taken into consideration.
Ticket workflow is also important because one Project ticket typically has the same workload as 24-32 Incident tickets.
The skillset of the techs also needs to be taken into consideration at the time of Triage and workload rebalancing.
‘Overdue’ in the context of ticket status can be misleading because it can be manually reset unless under SLA automation control; a backlog list of tickets is a more accurate reflection of tickets needing intervention.
Autotask to the Rescue
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
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.
The Autotask Dashboard is Telling a Story
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.
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.
Side Note: Scheduling all Projects and Installs in the Autotask calendar is to establish and protect ample uninterrupted hours required to complete the work on-time and on-budget. It also provides broad visibility and transparency across the organization of how the time is to be spent, further reinforcing its importance. This is the only way to drive the chaos out of the work environment.
The third chapter in the story of analyzing the Workload Dashboard is to note who’s 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.
The process gets easier…but it’s still complicated
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.
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) which are ‘move consideration candidates’.
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.
Remember to consider the skillset of each tech
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, to ensure they’re helping resolve the overload situation - and not creating another overworked tech.
Once the ticket has been moved, the Service Coordinator continues to use the Autotask Workload Dashboard as described above until the work has been distributed as evenly as possible.
There is another way to make life easier…
Of course, there is another way to make Jason’s life easier and keep him from quitting…
How? Engage Advanced Global to work with your team to build out the needed automation and dashboards - so that your techs always know what they should be working on, your Service Coordinator always has their pulse on the ticket flow, and the MSP is consistently meeting its obligations to the Client.
(For information on Advanced Global’s Service Delivery Foundational Improvement program, send us an email to info@agmspcoaching.com, and we’ll be happy to help.)
Conclusion and Helpful Resources
Obviously, Tech burnout is just one facet of a potential mental health issue. But it’s the one 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.
So, what if the issue seems to be deeper than just Tech burnout? Hopefully, your MSP has an employee assistance program, but here are some resources to help:
Richard Tubb is a well-known UK Blogger, and he has an excellent article called “Mental Health Resources for MSP Business Owners” chock-full of resources for the MSP owner. He says a strong support network is key, and you don’t have to go it alone. He meditates, reads, and calls a supportive friend while on walks.
Axcient has this blog article, “MSP Mental Health: The Toll of Cybersecurity and Tools to Cope.” They advocate allowing employees to focus, empowering them to achieve, requiring rest after emergency events, encouraging self-care, and respecting the human in everyone. This is a great read, well worth the time, and where we first learned of some of these resources.
I previously mentioned the podcast by Dave Sobol of “The Business of Tech” on why the IT industry must open up about mental health.
During Scott’s ChannelCon presentation, he recommended taking the Mental First Aid Course.
National Alliance on Mental Illness: When Matt owned an MSP, one of his Clients was the local NAMI chapter. He highly recommends getting in touch if you are ready to talk to someone. They are there to provide help to not just those in crisis but to family and friends as well. Here is their guide on finding a mental health professional.
You can also call the NAMI Helpline at 800-950-NAMI or chat with them. If you are in a crisis, you can text “NAMI” to 741741.
I hope that helped. Again, if you think a Team Member needs help, please get them in touch with your Employee Assistance Program or with the appropriate healthcare professional.
But, if an Owner, Service Manager, or Service Coordinator just needs a place to go “where everybody knows their name,” then I recommend our Thursday and Friday “Ask the Experts” Free calls. Not only can your Team ask all those tough Autotask questions, but many have found it a great place to hang out, vent a bit (or a lot), and get help from their peers on handing the “people issues.”
It's a community of like-minded professionals gathering in a “safe space” – and that’s what we’re here for: to support each other in the journey.
Stay well, my Autotask Gladiator. The world is a better place with you in it. If you need anything, I’m always here for you: info@AGMSPCoaching.com.