According to a turnover report from LinkedIn, the tech industry has the highest turnover rate at 13.2%. In fact, even global tech giants often struggle with low employee tenure. Most have a median employee tenure of only one or two years.
With the average attrition rate of tech employees outpacing that of other market verticals, how can a business encourage their tech staff to stay longer and reduce attrition?
When you take the time to understand the mindset of your tech employees and the diversity of projects they perform, you’ll have a great start towards finding ways to assist these valuable staff members with their duties and in their careers. Happier employees are employees who will stay longer with your company, increasing your employee retention rate.
MANAGED PRINT CASE STUDY: Sauk Prairie Healthcare
Change is hard. And starting a new job as a tech employee has its challenges. Consider creating a mentorship program for new employees, pairing them with a mentor in order to encourage smoother new employee onboarding. This can be done through a formal procedure or an informal daily or weekly “buddy” check-in for the new employee’s first few months.
The key to this process is to help the new recruit to eliminate obstacles or stumbling blocks as they are “learning the ropes” of the company and its culture. An effective mentoring program should give new employees the opportunity to openly ask questions of their assigned mentor and to introduce them to the people and information they will need to be effective and efficient in their tech position.
Mentoring is also a valuable tool which can be leveraged to create a collaborative and diverse company culture. This tool will assist your company to better ensure that all employees are equally given the opportunity to be successful.
Encouraging professional development can take on many forms. What may work best for your business may look different than a competitor’s. However, your support for learning and development opportunities will encourage your tech staff to refine their skills and broaden their knowledge beyond the parameters of their current job title.
One example is to create cross-functional teams. This encourages professional networking and can assist in bringing employees together to understand different perspectives and help solve company challenges. These teams may also involve leadership and public speaking opportunities – an excellent way to see who your next IT management rising star might be.
When you invest in your tech staff, they will understand that they are an integral part of helping your company grow and achieve your business goals.
Know how to better use your resources. Many businesses assign printer and copier troubleshooting to their IT team. While they often have the technical skills to diagnose a smaller problem, concerns such as these are often not the most favorite on an in-house tech employee’s to-do list.
Business machine troubleshooting is typically more efficient (and less expensive) if outsourced to a Managed Print Service (MPS) provider. Your IT team will thank you for freeing up their time to focus on projects that are a better use of their skills instead of having their time consumed by printer-related issues.
A MPS provider will also add value to your company without the hassle of copier/printer upkeep. This will be one less thing to interrupt the scheduled projects of your tech staff. Have you ever met an IT person who looks forward to stopping everything to go order a toner cartridge? We haven’t either.
A just-in-time toner replenishment service, administered by your MPS provider, typically uses a Data Collection Agent (DCA) that collects data from the usage meters of printing devices connected to your network. The DCA then sends meter reports along with toner cartridge levels back to the main database server, which displays on a dashboard. This system uses an algorithm that looks at usage meters and percentage remaining in the cartridge. Then, the system compares the percentage remaining to the cartridge yield to calculate an estimated empty date. When the system estimates that the device will be empty in approximately 20 days, the device is added to a notification report indicating that it is time to ship the next toner cartridge to the customer. Reduce the hassle; make your tech staff happy.
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If you find opportunities to carve out a project from your busy tech staff’s to-do list, do it. Things like outsourced project work, solutions, security or strategy are items that can fill in the gaps within your IT team. In fact, Elevity (a Gordon Flesch Company) has extensive experience in providing co-managed IT services such as network infrastructure refreshes and firewall updates.
Outsourcing project work will save time for your tech staff and allow them to focus on what’s most important to your business.
Working with a MPS provider and outsourcing your print management could reduce the workload burden of your tech staff, as well as help you develop and maintain a project plan to identify priorities, maintain time lines and deliver new devices and software solutions for your business. Not only could you lighten the load for your tech staff, but you could also cut costs in your IT budget.
Contact the Gordon Flesch Company for a free audit of your business technology to learn more.
