The MSP’s Worst Nightmare Isn’t What You Think
Follow along with us for an honest insight into:
Your MSPs worst nightmare
So many MSPs are far from Zen
How bad is it? The stats speak.
What to do about all this burnout?
Why a multi-faceted approach is key
Autotask to the rescue
The Autotask dashboard tells a story
The process gets easier…somewhat
Remember to consider the Tech’s skillset
Where to get help [resources]
Imagine your worst nightmare for your MSP. Would it be…your Senior Engineer quitting? Autotask or IT Glue breaking? Your RMM sending out ransomware? A lawsuit?
Those are all very bad things indeed, guaranteed to make for stressful weeks. But we have ways of handling those. IT Glue to keep knowledge from being in one person’s head, offline documentation, incident response policies, cyber insurance, lawyers, etc.
But what about the unseen dangers that lurk? Your Team is the most important part of the MSP. 50 people or 1, every single person is valued. And every single one of them could be experiencing a mental health crisis right now that can wreck careers, lives, families, and businesses.
We’re facing some scary stuff ahead, Autotask Warriors and Gladiator Community Members. I am very glad you are here so we can talk about it.
So Many MSPs are FAR from Zen
For years, my team has been coaching MSPs on leveraging the automation in Autotask and building a Zen-like like environment for the MSP Team (and raving fan Clients). Yet, we are still seeing people full of stress and frustration because of high workloads, inefficient processes, and management that will just not get out of the way and let them do their jobs.
The truth is that it's not just the Techs and SCs. Owners are unhappy because their Team doesn’t know what to work on next, the Techs don’t want to embrace change, inflation is wreaking havoc, and so many other things. And you thought the pandemic era was bad enough…
Last year Huntress dedicated a “Fireside Chat” to mental health and not too long after, we attended a ChannelCon security track presentation by Scott Scrogin. It turns out that increased cybersecurity threats, the pandemic, and shortages of IT workers have everybody stressed out, including your non-security focused staff.
Why do we care?
As Scott put in one of his slides:
“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.”
So how bad is it? These shocking stats tell the story.
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 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 techs say they feel immense pressure at work.
84% of techs 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 back in 2021. 2024 doesn’t look like we are seeing many improvements. Conversations in our weekly Gladiator Community and with Clients and prospects still show lots of burn-out, frustration, and lost productivity.
What can we do about all this burnout?
Plenty of things - starting with authentic conversation. We can also:
Have an honest dialogue about it and help remove the taboo.
Implement an employee assistance program through a local provider or a PEO like Insperity.
Hold meetings and talk to our Teams to understand what is on their mind (it might have nothing to with work).
Provide the time off they need (real time off – no laptops on the beach).
Pay them fairly.
Ensure the Service Coordinator is covered outside their working hours.
Last but not least, we can quit overloading Techs through a better process.
The bottom line: our people need help, and we owe it to them to do everything we can to be there for them.
A Multifaceted Approach is a Must to Combat Overwhelm
Back on June 14th, there was a Gladiator Community posting about Jason, a hard-working tech who does a great job and is generally quite efficient. Jason’s productivity was way down because he had too many tickets!
Techs like Jason are often overworked, while other techs seem to be coasting because they are very good and hogging tickets, are struggling with assigned tickets outside their skillset, are a project engineer not prioritizing escalated tickets, or are 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 that accounts for Ticket Count, Ticket Workflow, the Tech Skillset, and a greater understanding of ‘Overdue’ in the context of ticket status.
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
Heads up: As always, I’m providing directions best suited for the DIY crowd. If you’d rather write a check for us to Do it For You, email info@agmspcoaching.com. If you need help implementing the below you can make a forum post to the Gladiator Community.
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 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.
You also want to 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 alas, 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 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.
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 – especially in these times.
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” chocked-full of resources for the MSP owner.
Axcient has this blog article, “MSP Mental Health: The Toll of Cybersecurity and Tools to Cope.”
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: 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 the Service Delivery Gladiator’s Community. Not only can your Team ask all those tough Autotask questions, but many have found the forums and weekly calls to be 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 this always-adventurous journey.
Stay well, my Autotask Warrior. The world is a better place with you in it. If you need anything, I’m always here for you: info@AGMSPCoaching.com.
Steve & Co