Author: ARRC Technology

If your employees aren’t engaged, then it’s only a matter of time before something, somewhere down the line goes wrong. Now, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “I pay them to feel engaged.” And to a certain degree, you have a point.

Why should you worry about their level of personal engagement, right? We’re all adults here… engaged or not engaged, work better get done.

But think about it this way: you and John Smith down the street sell the same product, you have the same technology and you have the same resources. So why are you the one out back digging a hole six feet deep for your business while John Smith keeps raking in the Benjamins?

The answer is simple. John has some pretty engaged employees. He pays them well, but he treats them even better. They are the key to his success and they are the nail in your coffin.

But what exactly is an engaged employee and how do you spot one in the wild? An engaged employee feels an emotional connection to their work and the organization they belong to. They work harder and better than the average employee and demonstrate a significant degree of loyalty towards you and your company.

And on the other hand, a disengaged employee feels no emotional connection to their work or to your business. As soon as an opportunity like John Smith comes around, they snag it. Loyalty is a word they do not know when it comes to your company. And when it comes to the actual work they produce, it’s mediocre at best.

If you’re panicking about the zombie hoard at your business, I’m sure you’re wondering… what now?

Luckily, there are four key components that create an engaged employee: communication, trust, stimulation and recognition. Focus on these four areas and you’ll take the walking dead out of your office.

Communication

People should be able to come to you with both their work issues and their ‘A-Ha Moments.’ If you fail to take their problems and ideas seriously, then they won’t take you seriously. And the more they feel like they don’t have a voice in your company, the more likely they’ll jump ship when John Smith sails by.

Trust

While communication is a very important factor, your employees need to trust you even more so. They need to believe in your ability to manage that communication effectively. In other words, can you follow through with ideas, issues, complaints…? Better put, are you leading or are you just there?

Stimulation

There has to be some stimulating aspect of their job and their relationship with your company. Can they grow from their position? Are you giving them the tools and resources to do so? With all this growth, can they move up, take over more responsibility and become a greater influencer? People are constantly looking for new ways to grow, even if they don’t openly admit it. It’s human nature and the reason why we’re at the top of the food chain.

Recognition

Everyone likes a little recognition every now and then, especially on the job. If they don’t feel like their work or their presence is worth anything, then they will go somewhere where their abilities will be appreciated and valued. If you’re thinking monetary reward, then you’re missing the point. Try emails shout-outs for employees who crush their goals or get a new certification. The simplest of gestures can make a world of difference.

Recruiting and retaining top talent isn’t easy. Even after the hiring process ends, there are several metrics your Human Resources (HR) specialist(s) should keep tabs on to ensure top performers stick around long enough to deliver meaningful results for your company.

Here are 3 metrics highly effective HR organizations measure:

1. Productivity Over Presence

Some HR organizations focus heavily on absenteeism. Maybe that’s because countless studies have shown that higher than average absentee rates—anything above about 2%—equate to lower productivity. And yes, in a general sense, increased absenteeism could be an early warning sign of employee engagement issues.

That said, organizations lose top talent by making the simple mistake of equating productivity to showing up for work.

Here’s where this breaks down …

Highly productive and efficient employees are significantly more productive than those just phoning it in. By simply lumping everyone together into one bucket that values attendance over productivity, organizations inadvertently cause top producers to disengage.

Tip: To identify and reward top workers, consider creating a Productivity Index that’s tied to an incentive program. This way, you’ll have line-of-sight to top producers, as well as the ability to reward their hard work and improve retention rates.

Ways to Measure Productivity:

• Quantity produced (error-free)
• Revenue generated
• Profit generated
• Number of people helped ÷ satisfaction rating

2. Turnover

Some turnover is expected, but if it exceeds 18%, you might want to find out why. As a caveat, if your company has less than 10 employees, take that percentage with a grain of salt. Losing a couple employees per year doesn’t necessarily mean you’re headed for trouble.

Tip: To measure annual voluntary employee turnover, take the number of employees who left your employment in the last 12 months, then subtract any layoffs/firings, and divide the remaining number by the average number of employees you had during that 12-month period. Here’s the equation:

Annual Voluntary Turnover = Voluntarily separated employees ÷ Average Number of Employees – Involuntary Separations

For example, let’s say your average number of employees was 130 last year, 15 left voluntarily, and 5 were let go. Here’s how to determine your turnover rate based on these figures:

130 – 5 = 125

15 ÷ 125 = 12%

In this case, the turnover percentage is below average and no cause for concern.

3. Cost Per Hire & Early Turnover

It’s important to consider these two factors together. Here’s why: You might be able to achieve a relatively low cost per hire, but your early turnover rate—departure prior to one year of employment—could be costing your organization more than $40,000 in productivity each time a new hire exits your organization early.

Tip: To measure the cost of a new hires, divide recruiting costs by the total number of new employees.

Measure, Analyze, Act

Simply measuring productivity, turnover, and cost per hire, isn’t enough to improve your retention rates. You must also commit to reviewing and analyzing the findings to identify areas of improvement, and then create an action plan to address shortcomings.

The key to long-term success is the technology services industry is to continually engage and satisfy customers so that they trust and rely on you for every new technology need. A critical component of nurturing sticky customers relies on having an effective, responsive Service Desk.

Do You Need a Service Desk and a Help Desk?

Have you heard the terms ‘Service Desk’ and ‘Help Desk’ used interchangeably? Or perhaps you think of them as equivalent yourself. However, both a service desk and a help desk are vital to your company’s success as a technology services business. So what’s the difference?

According to the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL):

• The service desk is a key component of managing the overall process from a strategic ‘big picture’ cross-organizational perspective. It reviews the overall IT processes and functionality.
• The help desk feeds into the service desk with a tactical, day-to-day role in responding to end-user needs. The help desk is a component of the overall service desk. The help desk’s mission is to be the single point of first contact for your customers when it comes to problem resolution.

What Are the Functions of an Effective Service Desk?

The service desk functions as the first point of contact within your business for all IT questions. Service desk personnel are focused on processes and company strategy, and should include a Service Desk Manager, Service Desk Supervisor, and Service Desk Analyst. Some of the functions fulfilled by an ITIL service desk include:

• Incident management
• Problem management
• Configuration management
• Change management
• Release management
• SLA management
• Availability management
• Capacity management
• IT service continuity management
• Security management

3 Best Practices for Service Desk Support of the Customer

The responsibilities of the service desk are enormous. Books can be written about what it takes to run a really effective service desk, but let’s start with some basics. Establish these three critical service desk best practices up front, before moving on to finer points of service desk optimization.

1. Establish an Effective Onboarding Process

Once a customer chooses your company to provide their technology solutions, your service desk must execute an efficient, thorough on-boarding process that ensures a smooth launch of services for the customer. Anything other than a well-oiled onboarding process will frustrate new customers and quickly erode satisfaction and trust. An essential step in the process is collecting the required data in order to set up the client’s account and configure the remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool, professional services automation (PSA) solution, billing and communications systems to support them. You’ll also need to conduct a thorough needs assessment and ensure that your provisioning process runs flawlessly.

2. Train Your Team and the Customer Before Go-Live

Training should be a regular component of your process for spinning up new customers. Prior to go-live, your help desk and service desk staff need to be trained so they become familiar with the new customer’s infrastructure and support requirements. The customer and end-users need to receive training about how to work with your organization. This should include how to open service requests, details about their SLAs and reporting they should expect, and how your service desk processes and incident management processes will work

3. Leverage the Value of Automation

If you can insert more automation into your service desk processes, you’ll enable your service team to operate with greater efficiency and productivity. That can add up to better profitability for your business overall—with the happy side effect of extremely satisfied customers! Automation to consider includes an RMM tool, PSA system, communication aids such as chat support, and solutions that enable remote support of your customers.

Work is exhausting. You know it. He knows it. That person way over there knows it. We all know it. But as you’ve probably noticed, some people can handle this exhaustion much better than others, yourself included. They might have more responsibilities, more authority, and more going on in their personal lives, but somehow, they still make it through the day feeling good and looking even better.

You can blame it on a potential alien infestation all you want, but you know as well as we do that this isn’t the case. And no, they aren’t better at being a human than you are. Simply put, they’ve managed to pick up some really good habits. Habits that keep them energized, motivated, and positive. And habits that make sure they’re healthy enough to fend off exhaustion even when it’s at its worst.

So to be a better, healthier, and more productive working member of society, here’s what we recommend.

Stop snacking on the wrong foods.

You’re hungry, you’re losing energy, and your productivity is starting to feel the drawbacks of an empty stomach. So you reach for that chocolate. That bag of chips. That pack of extra salty, extra cheesy crackers. Just the right amount of everything to make that tummy of yours feel not so empty. But unfortunately, that high will only last so long. You might not feel so hungry anymore, but every other part of your body will be feeling the pressure of extra salt and extra sugar.

So do yourself a favor and don’t reach for that chocolate, that bag of chips, or that pack of extra salty, extra cheesy crackers. Why? Well, not only is it terrible for your body, it’s terrible for your productivity. According to the Harvard Business Review, eating foods like pasta, cereal, and soda will certainly give you energy—but only for so long. Eventually, you’ll hit a wall, and your productivity will fall to a quick death.  And foods like burgers and French fries? Those wonderful mealtime choices will make you groggy and reduce “oxygen levels in the brain.” Sounds exactly like what you want to happen in the middle of the workday, doesn’t it?

Not so much. The answer? Pick up a fruit. To a lot of people, fruits and vegetables aren’t exactly the tastiest snacks. And for other people, fruits and vegetables shouldn’t even be used in the same sentence with a word like tasty. But still, they’re good for your body, and they’re even better for your mind.

Time and time again, research has indicated that people who eat more fruits and vegetables throughout the day feel happier, healthier, and more satisfied with who they are and what they’re doing. So the question becomes: is an apple really all that bad?

And the answer to that is no. When your health and happiness are at stake, the taste of an apple (or any other fruit or vegetable for that matter) shouldn’t make a difference.

Get uninterrupted sleep.

Ridiculously successful people have weird sleeping habits. Some sleep an average of 15 hours a day while others refuse to sleep more than four a night. So instead of telling you to get 6-8 hours of sleep every day like most people will tell you, we’ll just say this: when you do sleep (whether it’s for 8 hours or 8 minutes), make sure you sleep well. Create the perfect sleeping environment—from your bed and lighting to the noise and pillows—so you can get the most bang for your buck. The better you sleep, the longer your productivity can last.

Have bad sleeping habits already? It’s easy to rewire your body and mind if you’re consistent. Take the TV out of the bedroom, set your morning alarm on your phone an hour before bed and do NOT look at your phone for that hour, have an evening routine and make the room dark and cool. You’ll find you’re sleeping a lot better with entirely minimal effort.

Listen to the right music.

Everyone has different tastes in tunes, so some of this advice won’t apply to every person. But for most of us, listening to upbeat, faster songs can boost our productivity levels and snap us out of our afternoon slump. Make a playlist on Spotify or Apple Music and mix in your favorites. Then, when you need to focus on a project and just aren’t feeling it, pop in your earbuds and let the music re-energize you. We recommend staying away from smooth jazz and classical music if you’re already feeling tired, because you’re just asking to fall asleep at your desk. No one wants that, right? Instead, pick some rock music to inspire you, some pop music to energize you, or some rap music to encourage you. Whatever works best for you!

Whether you’re a new entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, there are some core business mistakes that can torpedo all your hard work. We know building up a company takes blood, sweat and tears. Along the way, you’re bound to have a couple screw ups. Some of them are easy to come back from while others can irreparably damage everything about your business. Good news is, there are mistakes that are easily avoidable. Here are a few of them.

Choosing the wrong team

The team you choose to work with and to build your business around has the power to determine how successful your company will become and how difficult your job will be as a CEO. Either you can lean on them or you can’t. Either you can release them into the wild or you can’t. Either you trust them or you don’t. If you hire the right people who share your vision and your passion for your business, you’ll see it in their work and the company will benefit as a whole.

It’s extremely vital that you take your time with the hiring process. Do not jump into something because you’re desperate to make a decision and do not hire solely based on experience and education. Who they are and how they work matters just as much, if not more, than what they know. Get a feel for who they are as a person. Energy is easier to read than most people think.

Not using the right technology

Finding the right technology is a lot like hiring the right person. It’s tempting to jump into a premature purchase because you’re desperate for a solution, but if you take your time, you will see more growth and better results.

The key is to think of technology as an investment and not just as a necessity.  Carefully consider your technology investments from every angle possible: as a CEO, as a staff member, as a client, as a vendor, and as an outsider looking in. With the right technology, you’ll have a solid foundation to build your company on and the ease-of-mind that your data is safe and protected.

Ignoring your clients

Whether your business is small, large, new, or old, it’s easy to place your business on a pedestal because it’s everything you’ve ever worked for and more. It’s your baby, your one and only, your everything.

So when someone decides to present you with their not-so-positive opinion about your business, it’s easy for you to dismiss their thoughts. But this is a huge mistake that you don’t have to make. You can always learn something from what your clients have to say about you and your business. Maybe the complaint is completely uncalled for, but if you peel away the superficial judgment about your company, what’s left? Humans are still incredibly social beings, and if your company starts to get a bad reputation, you need to be smart enough to catch those bad opinions early on and fix them before the problem gets too large to handle.

It’s not a secret that businesses require some form of management to operate effectively and efficiently. From defining key roles and responsibilities for each employee to interacting with clients, managers hold a lot of responsibilities—especially when it comes to information security.

There’s a huge misconception that risks and security incidents should be handled on a case-by-case basis, often after the breach has occurred. This belief is entirely misguided and something that your business cannot afford to believe. Recent studies show that sixty percent of hackers can breach an organization’s safeguards within just a few minutes. It’s painfully apparent that data security should be a major concern for your business.

Now it’s time to address the elephant in the room regarding your data safety—your employees.

No matter what application, program, or unified threat management system that you use to protect your data, it’s only effective if your employees know how to use it. According to David Anderson of Clifton Larson Allen, “This is the social aspect, targeting the end-user. This is the #1 way to attack an organization.”

Training your employees to have strong passwords and securely share information is critical. But you can’t expect for your employees to be compliant with your security demands if you don’t define their specific security roles and responsibilities.

Plan how you’re going to approach your data security by ensuring that you have the appropriate managers and overseers in place. Once this is done, assess the potential risks and create hierarchical solutions that can be repeated. When you’re ready to move forward, be sure to assign the following roles:

• Security Committee: Those on this board will review your organization’s security management policies and will provide leadership, guidance and oversight to security problems.
• Management: In small organizations, this could also be the security committee. Once the security plan has been approved, the group will communicate the process to all parties and employees.
• IT Management Firm: Your IT solutions provider would be responsible for data processing and your overall business network. They will also interact with the security committee to create a security policy and is responsible for implementation. When it comes to Managed Services, just make sure to communicate the security solution properly to your clients and management.
• Data Owners: These members classify the information within their jurisdiction by reviewing its value and sensitivity. They discover the implications that losing their data means. They also determine the type of access that each employee will receive.

Users: In this case, these are the staff members that have to comply with your security policy. Ensure that they don’t disclose or share their login credentials and passwords with anyone, including other employees.