Part 1: Retaining Technical Talent
The quality of your ISP (and your subscribers' perception of it) will be affected by the quality of your technical staff. This two-part article will delve into the basics of recruiting and retaining top-notch networking technicians, and provide some insights into immediate strategies that you can deploy to strengthen your ISP's ability to attract and retain tech talent.
by Christopher Knight
Retaining Supercedes Attracting
It may seem odd to talk about retaining talent before we talk about attracting it, but bear with us; there is a logical process here: By retaining the top talent you may already be lucky enough to have, you immediately increase your ability to attract top talent. Why? Like attracts like; good techs like to work in shops with talented colleagues. And having a group of well-regarded technicians on staff sends a message to potential employees that you've created a tech-friendly environment.
Compared to other positions and responsibilities within your ISP organization, technicians are in a class of their own. Making allowances for individual idiosyncrasies, here's a list of needs that most ISP techies share:
Need for increased knowledge and skill proficiency
Need for pay appreciation and skill appreciation
Need for paid skill training
Need for uniqueness, a tech area to own, to be individually responsible for
Need for strong benefit package with fast advancement potential
Need for constant praise and appreciation even though they won't ask for it
Need for the network challenge, the ability to solve a really messed up network and convert it into a smooth running scalable machine that can handle anything
Need for an employer who believes in investing in techies and their network
Need for a relaxed dress-code
Need to be part of the company growth process, and not just left to clean up after what the sales team dumps on them.
You will need to accept the fact that every techie you hire is not a "lifer" (someone who will remain with your ISP forever). This lets you come to grips with the realization that all technicians are essentially in transit, and that you need to find ways to maximize your relationship while you have the opportunity to work together.
ISP Tech Retainer Tip:
Ask for an 18-36 month commitment from your techies. If they want to give you more of their life after that, great, but demand that they be with you "in the present" for at least an 18-month period of time. It's important that your techies live in the present and work in the present, because when they are thinking about the future or the past, they can't maximize their potential with you ? in the present.
How to make it happen
Here are the top 7 strategies that you can implement to ensure that your ISP has the best shot at retaining top tech talent:
Make sure every techie knows what their next step or next challenge is, so that they know specifically how they can make more money or earn their next promotion. A sure-fire way to lose good tech talent is to do only annual reviews. Instead, you must stay in close mental contact with your team so that they know that you care enough to help them reach the next level of personal or career success.
Don't impose a cap that stops them from achieving their true potential. Provide an atmosphere that allows them to climb as high as their human abilities will allow them to.
Recognize that if you provide your network with half-assed equipment, you will only be able to retain half-assed technicians. Sorry to be so blunt, but this is the simple truth. If you want top talent, you have to be willing to give them a top-notch NOC (Network Operation Center).
If your team works extreme hours, such as 60-70+ hours under extreme stress conditions, make sure you give them time off for themselves or their family, with pay.
Set aside play time each day or each week, where you allow your staff to release tension and stress through play. Play can include nerf football, network quake, and any other game that allows every tech to escape the daily grind.
Drive sales so your techies can have faith that they will be able to climb as your organization grows. Stagnating sales team performance will eventually spill over and result in your techies quitting on you.
Stock-option incentives and/or bonuses based on performance, such as uptime, customer telephone or email return response, or increased server or network response times will ensure that your techies' goals are in alignment with your organizational goals as well.
Part 2: Attracting Top Technical Talent
The quality of your ISP (and your subscribers' perception of it) will be affected by the quality of your technical staff. This two-part article will delve into the basics of recruiting and retaining top-notch networking technicians, and provide some insights into immediate strategies that you can deploy to strengthen your ISP's ability to attract and retain tech talent.
Also read Part 1: Retaining Top Technical Talent.
by Christopher Knight
In order to attract top tech talent, your ISP must have a reputation of being a top ISP or employer of choice. This creates a paradoxical problem in that if your ISP is not number one in your market, how do you attract number one type technicians?
The answer is that you can create a goal to build your tech staff in phases by over-compensating with increased interpersonal communication and increased pay until you are number one, in which case the same increased compensation and communication needs will exist.
Gorilla top talent attraction principle number 1: Get to know your competitors' top tech talent via participating in local Linux or network or operating system user groups in your area. In getting to know them, you can begin trying to convince them that the grass is greener over at your ISP. Know that your competitors are already doing this to you.
Pay now or Pay later
Don't be afraid to pay for top talent. If you under-pay, you often end up paying twice, once for the problems your technical staff is incompetent in solving and once more for the expensive outside talent you had to bring in to help solve those problems in the end.
(Now, all of you techies who are reading this, don't haul off and print this out for your boss to read, because the amount of money you make must be in direct proportion to the economic value that you create, and if you are underpaid, the marketplace will make sure you get more money or your ISP will help you get more money so that they can retain your services.)
Word of mouth and happy existing top talent will help attract more top tech talent
Offer your on-staff techies a bounty, such as $200, paid $100 upon the signing of one of their friends or acquaintances who gets hired and $100 upon their friend or referral making 90 days of employment with your ISP. Often times they will know of at least one or two other techies at your competitors or at a noncompetitor such as a corporate employer who might be dissatisfied with their current employer and be interested in a new job.
Writing your help wanted ads
Before you place another recruiting ad in your local newspaper for technical staff, try the popular online services, such as dice.com, monster.com, hotjobs.com. Also, every state has at least one state-specific online job service on which you can promote your position for interested job seekers.
When doing recruiting, make sure you identify how the candidates found you, so that in future searches you can place less emphasis on the media that didn't produce the most qualified candidates and more on the ones that did.
Lastly, when you write your ads, make sure you list the benefits and pay first, and then the job responsibilities. Every techie ? and most other humans for that matter ? always wants to know what is in it for them first, and what they will have to do second.
Part 1: Retaining Technical Talent
The quality of your ISP (and your subscribers' perception of it) will be affected by the quality of your technical staff. This two-part article will delve into the basics of recruiting and retaining top-notch networking technicians, and provide some insights into immediate strategies that you can deploy to strengthen your ISP's ability to attract and retain tech talent.
by Christopher Knight
Retaining Supercedes Attracting
It may seem odd to talk about retaining talent before we talk about attracting it, but bear with us; there is a logical process here: By retaining the top talent you may already be lucky enough to have, you immediately increase your ability to attract top talent. Why? Like attracts like; good techs like to work in shops with talented colleagues. And having a group of well-regarded technicians on staff sends a message to potential employees that you've created a tech-friendly environment.
Compared to other positions and responsibilities within your ISP organization, technicians are in a class of their own. Making allowances for individual idiosyncrasies, here's a list of needs that most ISP techies share:
Need for increased knowledge and skill proficiency
Need for pay appreciation and skill appreciation
Need for paid skill training
Need for uniqueness, a tech area to own, to be individually responsible for
Need for strong benefit package with fast advancement potential
Need for constant praise and appreciation even though they won't ask for it
Need for the network challenge, the ability to solve a really messed up network and convert it into a smooth running scalable machine that can handle anything
Need for an employer who believes in investing in techies and their network
Need for a relaxed dress-code
Need to be part of the company growth process, and not just left to clean up after what the sales team dumps on them.
You will need to accept the fact that every techie you hire is not a "lifer" (someone who will remain with your ISP forever). This lets you come to grips with the realization that all technicians are essentially in transit, and that you need to find ways to maximize your relationship while you have the opportunity to work together.
ISP Tech Retainer Tip:
Ask for an 18-36 month commitment from your techies. If they want to give you more of their life after that, great, but demand that they be with you "in the present" for at least an 18-month period of time. It's important that your techies live in the present and work in the present, because when they are thinking about the future or the past, they can't maximize their potential with you ? in the present.
How to make it happen
Here are the top 7 strategies that you can implement to ensure that your ISP has the best shot at retaining top tech talent:
Make sure every techie knows what their next step or next challenge is, so that they know specifically how they can make more money or earn their next promotion. A sure-fire way to lose good tech talent is to do only annual reviews. Instead, you must stay in close mental contact with your team so that they know that you care enough to help them reach the next level of personal or career success.
Don't impose a cap that stops them from achieving their true potential. Provide an atmosphere that allows them to climb as high as their human abilities will allow them to.
Recognize that if you provide your network with half-assed equipment, you will only be able to retain half-assed technicians. Sorry to be so blunt, but this is the simple truth. If you want top talent, you have to be willing to give them a top-notch NOC (Network Operation Center).
If your team works extreme hours, such as 60-70+ hours under extreme stress conditions, make sure you give them time off for themselves or their family, with pay.
Set aside play time each day or each week, where you allow your staff to release tension and stress through play. Play can include nerf football, network quake, and any other game that allows every tech to escape the daily grind.
Drive sales so your techies can have faith that they will be able to climb as your organization grows. Stagnating sales team performance will eventually spill over and result in your techies quitting on you.
Stock-option incentives and/or bonuses based on performance, such as uptime, customer telephone or email return response, or increased server or network response times will ensure that your techies' goals are in alignment with your organizational goals as well.
Part 2: Attracting Top Technical Talent
The quality of your ISP (and your subscribers' perception of it) will be affected by the quality of your technical staff. This two-part article will delve into the basics of recruiting and retaining top-notch networking technicians, and provide some insights into immediate strategies that you can deploy to strengthen your ISP's ability to attract and retain tech talent.
Also read Part 1: Retaining Top Technical Talent.
by Christopher Knight
In order to attract top tech talent, your ISP must have a reputation of being a top ISP or employer of choice. This creates a paradoxical problem in that if your ISP is not number one in your market, how do you attract number one type technicians?
The answer is that you can create a goal to build your tech staff in phases by over-compensating with increased interpersonal communication and increased pay until you are number one, in which case the same increased compensation and communication needs will exist.
Gorilla top talent attraction principle number 1: Get to know your competitors' top tech talent via participating in local Linux or network or operating system user groups in your area. In getting to know them, you can begin trying to convince them that the grass is greener over at your ISP. Know that your competitors are already doing this to you.
Pay now or Pay later
Don't be afraid to pay for top talent. If you under-pay, you often end up paying twice, once for the problems your technical staff is incompetent in solving and once more for the expensive outside talent you had to bring in to help solve those problems in the end.
(Now, all of you techies who are reading this, don't haul off and print this out for your boss to read, because the amount of money you make must be in direct proportion to the economic value that you create, and if you are underpaid, the marketplace will make sure you get more money or your ISP will help you get more money so that they can retain your services.)
Word of mouth and happy existing top talent will help attract more top tech talent
Offer your on-staff techies a bounty, such as $200, paid $100 upon the signing of one of their friends or acquaintances who gets hired and $100 upon their friend or referral making 90 days of employment with your ISP. Often times they will know of at least one or two other techies at your competitors or at a noncompetitor such as a corporate employer who might be dissatisfied with their current employer and be interested in a new job.
Writing your help wanted ads
Before you place another recruiting ad in your local newspaper for technical staff, try the popular online services, such as dice.com, monster.com, hotjobs.com. Also, every state has at least one state-specific online job service on which you can promote your position for interested job seekers.
When doing recruiting, make sure you identify how the candidates found you, so that in future searches you can place less emphasis on the media that didn't produce the most qualified candidates and more on the ones that did.
Lastly, when you write your ads, make sure you list the benefits and pay first, and then the job responsibilities. Every techie ? and most other humans for that matter ? always wants to know what is in it for them first, and what they will have to do second.
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