The Value of Employee Engagement
There was an IT Salary Report 2022 that was recently completed by a Facebook group that our #HeadNerds team is a part of called “This Is an IT Support Group”. Although the survey asked for salary information for IT personnel, there was also a section in the survey where the respondents were asked, “What is the biggest pain point you have working in IT?”
Many of the responses were as expected: dealing with difficult customers and end-users, challenges around security, printers, etc. However, there were several responses around mentorship, issues with work-life balance, poor management, lack of communication, and lack of career growth that I found fascinating, as this speaks directly to how “engaged” these IT professionals were with their current employer.
Employee engagement is a term that describes the “emotional connection” an employee feels towards their organization (https://blog.vantagecircle.com/employee-engagement-trends/). It is the extent to which employees feel committed to their jobs, their organization, and how enthusiastic they are about the work they do. The stronger that emotional connection, the more motivated they will be in delivering their personal best to the organization. And the weaker that emotional connection, the more likely that organization will suffer in its ability to reach its full potential.
With the Great Resignation still a key concern for businesses, having responses like these from the over 1,000 IT professionals that participated in this survey, does not bode well if you are an MSP that is suffering from poor employee engagement.
So, what are some practical ways to help boost your employee engagement and that emotional connection your staff feels for your MSP?
1. Prioritizing employee engagement and making it a top-down priority
Employee engagement cannot be lip service or just something that HR is responsible for. It has to be something that is a fundamental belief of your leadership team and managers. Successful companies with “engaged” employees talk about employee engagement all the time and are transparent about what activities they would like to implement to continually improve upon it. A Gallup.com workplace survey found that a manager or team leader alone accounts for 70% of the variance in team engagement.
Here at N‑able, we receive bi-annual engagement surveys that all employees participate in, and our C-level executives are transparent in the survey results and what they intend to do to address any concerns the Engagement survey highlights. It is something that is openly discussed at all company town hall and quarterly kick-off meetings; and it is at the core of how our senior executive team plans future employee directives. It is evident that employee engagement is not just an “HR thing” but something in which our entire executive leadership team believes.
2. Setting expectations and providing opportunities for career growth and development.
Helping employees understand what is expected in their role, outlining what “success” looks like to the organization, and providing continual and constructive feedback, are key components of fostering an engaged employee. Also, ensuring that they have the opportunity to do what they are best at, and providing a career path for future success are also factors in determining how engaged an employee might be.
According to a recent Gallup State of the American Worksplace report, 87% of Millennials say “professional or career growth and development opportunities” provided by a job are important to them. And a Randstad study found that 43% of workers would leave their current employer if they felt that there was limited growth and career potential at their organization.
Exciting and challenging work is one of the main reasons for long-term employee retention, and if you feel that your MSP is lacking career progression for your staff, then this is going to hamper your abilities to not only retain staff, but also to recruit new employees as your company grows.
One way to help with career growth and development is by implementing a mentorship program. I have never been a part of a structured mentorship program before, but it is something that my younger self would have craved. Now don’t get me wrong, I have had some great colleagues who have provided sage career advice when I sought it but having an actual mentor that I could meet with regularly to discuss my career objectives and goals would have been much appreciated. And I feel this is particularly important in the world of IT, where it isn’t a secret that women are largely underrepresented when it comes to the technology industry. So, building an MSP that focuses on helping employees meet their career development and advancement goals, and that seeks to partner qualified mentors with mentees, can help ensure that all employees’ professional and personal development needs are met, thereby ensuring you retain employees who not only remain committed to working to your MSP, but thrive doing so.
3. Implementing a more flexible working arrangement that accommodates employees’ personal situations
I often joke that I was N‑able’s first WFH employee, as I have had the luxury of working from home since 2005, and this benefit is one of the main reasons why I have continued to be an N‑able employee for over 17 years. Back in 2005, while working in Ottawa (our Canadian HQ back then), we had some family issues come up where my husband and I felt that we needed to move home so that we could be closer to family, but we both still wanted to work for our respective Ottawa employers. The challenge for both of us was that “home” was eight hours away in southern Ontario. But N‑able and my husband’s company at the time both agreed that we would give this “work from home thing” a shot, and almost 18 years later, I’m still happily employed, working from home. And I’m so pleased that other colleagues of mine are now able to enjoy the same flexibility through the implementation of N‑able’s new “The Way We Work” hybrid work model and our Collaboration Hubs—so they can experience the same kind of benefits that I have had for years. And if you can implement this type of arrangement within your own MSP, it has been shown to help increase employee engagement levels because according to FlexJob, 75% of workers said they experience greater productivity at home, 74% have said they encounter fewer distractions, and 71% have said they experience less stress from not having that daily commute to contend with. And according to the 2022 IT Salary Report survey conducted by “This is an IT Support Group” Facebook group, 64% of IT workers said that they currently worked either fully remotely or in a hybrid model, so it is an initiative that many MSPs are starting to implement and embrace as we move beyond the pandemic.
So, there is a large variety of different employee engagement ideas that you could implement, but these are the top ones that have meant the most to me as I reflect on my tenure at N‑able. I’m proud of how N‑able has really embraced the concept of employee engagement over the past several years and how our leadership and senior management teams have worked to ensure that all 1,300+ employees are heard and their ideas are accounted for. It isn’t just a “trend” but something that is at the heart of how we are building, shaping, and defining our company moving forward.
Stefanie Hammond is head sales and marketing nerd at N‑able. You can follow her on LinkedIn and on Twitter at @sales_mktg_nerd.
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