Mental Wellbeing Pack
2020’s weird world and COPing with an increased MSP workload.
Covid-19 has been (and still is) a battle on all fronts, and for the IT Services Sector the challenge has been huge. As an MSP you have been tasked with getting clients able to ‘work-from-home’ whilst managing your own team remotely. The demand for additional services has been unprecedented and many working in the sector are feeling complete burn out, often staying awake at night concerned about the rapidly evolving cyber security threats in this new WFH world, how they are going to ensure clients are locked and loaded with their DR solutions and what the economy holds next for your hard-worked for MSP. You are not alone.
You are not alone…
According to the mental health charity MIND, more than half of UK adults and over two thirds of young people felt their mental health has deteriorated since the pandemic hit in March 2020
In a global study by Statista 67% of employed individuals reported feeling more stress at work since the COVID-19 Outbreak.
53% had experienced increased day-to-day sadness
50% admitted to being more irritable.
Around 54% of respondents reported feeling emotionally exhausted since the COVID-19 outbreak
The demand continues
Whilst the effects of Covid-19 on many businesses in other sectors have been catastrophic, the need for IT support has risen exponentially. A report from Deloitte suggests that the demand on the IT Services sector is not set to wane any time soon. Paul Sallomi, Chief Technology Leader at Deloitte notes in his recent report, understanding the sector impact of Covid-19, Technology Sector, that the demand for cloud services will continue to grow. As working from home looks set to stay, IT Services Providers will be challenged with getting the most basic client set-ups ready for a remote workforce, Paul notes that many companies do not have sufficient tech stacks to enable a WFH team and that many IT Service providers will be tasked with stepping outside of their comfort zones, providing communication and telecoms support. The question is, how are you going to balance the continued demand and your mental wellbeing in the continued ‘weird world’ of Covid-19?
How can MSPs contribute to better mental health?
There are a number of more general ways mental health can be safeguarded, many having been discussed by mental health organisations and research houses. Here are our 5 mental health focus points specifically for MSPs:
1.Voice Vs Text
Humans are social creatures, with most people telling mind.co.uk that their number 1 challenge this year has been loneliness. Loneliness in the workplace is totally different to feeling a general sense of being alone and without office support networks and peer-to-peer interaction it is easy to begin feeling isolated in your job. In addition, the use of text based communication often leads to tones being misinterpreted and not engaging in live conversation can enable ‘non-existent’ issues to manifest and grow between your workforce. Build a commitment to voice communication into your work from home strategy, ensure everyone is engaging in live conversation at least a few times a week and ensure everyone is afforded the time to do so.
2.Sharing the Load
It's imperative that no single person in your team feels like they are keeping all the plates spinning. The pressure of feeling critical to success is draining and will lead to burn out of even the most skilled and resilient individuals, pressure and dependency should be as equally distributed as possible right now, especially when most do not have the regular support mechanism of an office environment. If you’re feeling overburdened, tell someone, it’s totally OK to be feeling the pressure, it means you care. There are often ways that other team members can step in and help, and all too frequently the issue isn't that they cannot help, it is that they are unaware of their colleague’s struggles.
3.Internal Tech Stack Efficiency
Now may not be the right time to undertake a complete technology overhaul but, it is likely there are pieces of your tech stack that are not contributing to efficiency and instead, sapping time, energy and mental capacity from an already over stretched workforce. Instead of limping along with the same solutions, take some time to discuss the biggest time drains with your team, you’ll likely find that making some ultra simple changes (package upgrades etc) will take some of the pressure off.
4. Client Tech Stack Efficiency
Are you implementing the best solutions for your clients? Taking some time to review the vendors and solutions you work with is critical to safeguarding your team’s mental health. Working with outdated, sub-par solutions leads to increased client demand and more stress for your team. Where could you make subtle improvements to the solutions you are implementing for clients? Is there a particular vendor that is causing delays and roadblocks or are you finding there are more issues than there should be with a particular solution? Now is the time to swap these out and replace with something that enables your team, keeps clients happier and contributes to a decrease in day-to-day workload.
5.Time out
So many people will use the definition of ‘Groundhog Day’ to explain the way that working from home continuously for the best part of a year feels. So many are guilty of never switching off, letting time with their families become infiltrated with work and spending more hours than is healthy sitting at their computer. Covid-19 overtime is real. Aside from allocated holidays, think of ways to afford longer breaks to your team members, encourage designated additional time off when a big project is completed and recognise overtime with ‘finish early’ days where your workforce can regain lost time with family and friends.
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