MSP company 

What to Do When the Star Employee of Your MSP Company Leaves

Bill Hogan , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Your MSP company will go through personnel with time. No one is going to stick with you forever–well, statistically, very few employees will. You might even have partners pursue new opportunities. It’s better to avoid lamenting such a situation. Instead, determine means of addressing it.  

 

Tips in Handling the Loss of a Star Employee 

Hopefully, your best employees stay with you until your startup is an enterprise. But if they’re exceptionally good, their rate of skill expansion may overreach your operation’s outward growth. 

Accordingly, they’d be hurting themselves if they stayed with you when better opportunities developed. So expect this to happen eventually, and use these tips to manage the situation: 

 

The Exit Interview

Your MSP company leaders need to sit down with an employee leaving your business and figure out why. Sometimes they are disgruntled, sometimes there’s a medical or family issue. 

Sometimes there are new opportunities, sometimes there’s something you’re doing they don’t like, and which they think can’t be changed when you can alter operations and so keep the employee. Exit interviews are quite important.  

 

End Gossip with Truth and Distribute New Opportunities 

When a high-profile, top-tier employee leaves, the rest will gossip. Stop that immediately with the truth, whatever it is. Don’t tiptoe around it, don’t be vague. Say what happened, and move on. 

There are vacant positions that now need to be filled, and this can mean a pay increase for other existing employees. Point that out and get the responsibilities of the old employee distributed.  

 

Round Up Other Key Employees and Conduct “Stay” Interviews 

Another step worth doing is finding other employees who may have similar opinions to those of the key worker who left. Conduct stay interviews to determine if they have any gripes you can address, and ensure they’re not thinking of jumping ship as well.  

 

Recovering from the Loss of Key Personnel 

It makes sense for your MSP company to conduct exit interviews, squelch gossip, and conduct stay interviews whenever you lose a key employee. It’s going to happen eventually, so prepare in advance.  

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Bill Hogan

Bill Hogan is President of Partners Plus. A fast growing IT Support firm based in the Philadelphia area. Bill has been helping make life with business computers easier since 1981. His education as an Electrical Engineer at Penn State started a dual approach toward gaining expertise in both programming and computer networks. In 1991 he formed Partners Plus, Inc., to provide managed IT services to companies in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, based on being a business operations ally and understanding the need to speak to company leaders in plain English rather than ‘techno-babble’. And while others tend to focus their attention on the mechanical components of a computer system, Bill and his staff take a more global approach - how a network can be best used as an integral, reliable asset to the business owner’s goals. In 2007, after years of frustration with the sub-standard services he saw during network audits, Bill published “Hassle Free Computer Support” to educate business owners with the information they need to get superior technical support for their businesses A firm believer in keeping current with advances in technology and processes, Bill lead Partners Plus to become a Microsoft Certified Partner in 1998 and a Gold Certified Partner in 2008. And, Partners Plus Inc. has been selected by Microsoft as being in the top 1% of Partners serving the Small and Medium Business Market on the East Coast. Bill is internationally certified in Network Operations and is certified by Microsoft in project management and multiple Microsoft technologies. He also held the position of representative for the Mid-Atlantic region on Microsoft’s Advisory Board which manages all Microsoft Small Business certified partners. Partners Plus provides managed it services to clients in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley and helps them choose, implement, and manage IT and cloud solutions that are cost effective and reliable. Partners Plus’ pro-active approach to IT support is ideally suited for companies in Wilmington, Delaware or Philadelphia who depend on reliable IT infrastructure, but don’t want to spend a lot of money to keep your IT services in Delaware that way. Partners Plus clients have come to appreciate the Partners Plus team focus on operations and the ability to get the core of problems quickly, and the knowledge of how to resolve issues as quickly as possible. With the institution of the Partners Plus Protection Program, the company can now monitor, identify and resolve many network issues in minutes without coming onsite.