EP132 - How to Recruit and Retain the Right People in Your MSP with Dean Watmough and Ian Luckett

INTRO: In this episode of the IT Experts Podcast we help you work out how to recruit and retain the right people in your MSP.
Welcome to the IT Experts Podcast, the only podcast to help MSP's scale to 1,000,000, and if already there get to 5 and go faster at the end of the day, isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

IAN: So, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts podcast. And today I'm absolutely delighted to have Dean Watmore from Human Eyes on the podcast, and they are a recruitment agency who specifically focus working with MSP's. Welcome to the show, Dean.

DEAN: Hey, Ian, how are you?

IAN: I am very good today. Very good today. So today, we are going to be giving the listeners a little bit of a checkup from the neck up, but certainly some tips and tricks to help them to recruit and retain the right people. You know, we got a big opportunity out there at the moment, post Pandemics loads of different ways of working. MSP's have generally fared pretty well, but there's still a few fundamental mistakes and I guess changes that we need to be aware of in the tech space in the way that people are working and the way that people are working has changed. But that also means that the way that people recruit and work, you know, has changed as well. But before we get into the meat and the bones on the show today. Do you want to explain a little bit, Dean, about who you are? What You do and who you help?

DEAN: So, I'm the co-founder of HUMNIZE. We are a recruitment agency with the difference and we do specialize in that MSP space. But we all come from the MSP space as well, so me and the team we've either owned or worked in MSP's. I learned the hard way the importance of having the right. People in your business and that's a story for another time, but it does mean it is. It's really motivated us and we're very passionate about helping other MSP not make the same mistakes that I did.

IAN: Excellent Stuff and you know, we've had a couple of conversations now just in preparation for today's show. What makes you different from other recruitment agencies that are working in the MSP space because there's a few things that you fundamentally do that are quite unique, aren't they? Which is kind of why you're on the show, I guess.

DEAN: Yeah, I think, look, I've been on the receiving end of the recruitment sector good and bad in various roles. We're not hitting hope type of agency. We don't just go for volume and check CVS over the fence and hope that someone stick. We tend to work exclusively with our clients because of the technical capabilities in the team. We do a lot of the heavy lifting, so we will attract, we will attraction campaigns, we will screen and technically screen all candidates. We can throw personality tests into that mix as well as the technical assessment. So, when we do submit someone to one of our clients and they will be very well screened. They'll be a very good fit for the role and also the culture and the team dynamics within the client's business. So, we're making it much easier with saving a shared load of time for the client, typically an MSP business owner or someone who's running, or you know, a team within MSP or someone who's kind of in an HR function. So yeah, we're doing that heavy lifting and we're saving them a lot of time.

IAN: And you know the things that you're talking about there about. You know, understanding, you know who they are, where they where they want to work that you know their technical capabilities and all these other things. You know many, many times when we're talking to MSP's in in the Growth Hub community, they're in a rush to fill or they've been waiting for so long to fill a plate and then panic can set in can’t it. And then without you before you know it. You kind of overlook a lot of the telltale signs and a lot of the red flags that would normally come up in the recruitment process and you recruit someone, you end up paying a fee, they end up being a pup for want of a better phrase, and then three months later you're realizing that they're actually not of good value mix for the business. And you're kind of back to square one, aren't you?

DEAN: And again that look that comes down to time. I think many MSP business owners, many of the people you work with the time poor, they're in the weeds. Still, they're busy. You know, actually on the tool, so to speak and yeah there is there, there can be that rush to get a bum on a seat yeah because the impact when someone. Needs, especially if they're, you know, a well thought of member of the team, somebody you've been relying on. It impacts you in a big way and ultimately the rest of the team and the business owner has to take up the slack. We always say recruitment is a full-time that you don't have the time to do. It gets tagged on to someone's To Do List. There's often a lack of Consistency in the process. If there is a process and who likes receive, you know, putting an ad out on indeed or another job board and getting a swathe of CV's who are actually nowhere near a match what you're looking for. So, then you go to an agency or several agencies which creates more confusion, takes up more of your time to the point where when you do find someone, it's just a relief and you're bring them in. You don't spend much time on the onboarding process, or the induction process and you know it's not always the candidate's fault if it doesn't work out. Yeah, it's a dual responsibility. So, and that's what we're all about. You know, we cover all those bases, we help with the on boarding. We talked about inductions. If you can't explain to a candidate. What their onboarding and induction programmes going to be, you've not thought about it. They should know that their first week, first month, first three months, first six months look like. It's very important and it's so overlooked because like I said, it's a relief. Well, we've found someone. Let me get back to my day job.

IAN: Get cracking. Let's just get him in and solve my problem of me being busy being busy and fill it in. OK, let's get into the meat on the bones here. What are you seeing as key differences from, you know, from the pandemic and I guess you know, we're now going into this economic crisis. Cost of living, crisis. Whatever you want to call it depends what the news wants to call it on any given day. But you know, uncertain times, I think you know challenging and uncertain times for economies I think is the best way to phrase it, but. What are you seeing is the difference in the market and the workplace now that the MSP's need to be aware of when recruiting the right staff.

DEAN: You've hit the nail on the head. Really right at the outset, the pandemic. The pandemic drove the move to the clouds, so more businesses want to move to the cloud, which also drove or created a shortage of technical talent. There's a lot of work out there, but not enough people to fill the. So, it's a very buoyant market. It's very much a candidate's market. Candidate driven we're seeing candidates getting multiple offers that didn't used to be the case. We're seeing candidates rejecting offers and again, that's new. If you want to recruit good people as much as the candidates needing to impress you, you as the employer need to also be impressing them. What we are finding as well is people want flexibility. More than ever before, if not fully remote, they certainly want some kind of hybrid flexibility with the role people realize they don't want to be commuting, not just the time impact in their day, but the cost of the commute as well. So wherever possible, you need to be considering how people want to work, but also how you can help them cover costs that they were covering themselves beforehand in terms of the that flexible, more remote way of working, it's having a negative impact as well. Particularly on you know it's been it's been well documented and talked about hell of a lot mental health. But also, the junior and entry level side of the market is really suffering because they are working remotely and more flexibly, they're missing out on so much that that they would have been able to take part in in an office environment. They're not hearing those conversations. They can't go sit at someone's desk and learn. So that's something again which really needs consideration. I've seen that myself. And you know, in previous roles when we've got younger members of the team, it's difficult to develop them as you would if you were working alongside. And so, there's some great things that I love working remotely, but I do like to get together with the team on a regular basis and I think that's so important we, you know, do miss that day-to-day connection. You know, it's most definitely a candidates market and I think we need to give a lot of consideration to how we are working with remote and hybrid state.

IAN: Yeah, I think he's raised some really, really good points there. My eldest son works from home and, you know, not the way that he's working and it's he goes into the office. There's no point going in the office cause most of his teams in Europe. Anyway, and you know all the conversations we remember having in our mid 20s about. Do you do that? What do you need to do? To this and what they're doing over there, there's a new thing coming on and being part of that community, being part of that relationship, I can't help thinking that, you know, it is years to come that this is going to affect, you know, the quality of relationships between people and the, you know, potentially the structure for business kind of thing moving forward as bit deep and heavy but I think it's I think it's that important that you know and I couldn't be doing what we're doing today and the same with Stuart. We had this conversation yesterday, if I didn't learn what I learned when I was up to about 30-5, maybe early 40s, you know, I just didn't have that experience. Now could I have got that experience sitting at home looking at a computer? I've really doubt that. You know, I really doubt that. So, it's going to be interesting to see. You know how that affects not only like you know. At the moment, it's kind of affected the physical logistics of the workplace, hasn't it? But what's that going to look like in 5 or 10 years time when it really is the norm? And how's that going to affect the I guess the people performance, isn't it in leadership?

DEAN: Yeah, isolation, it causes problems. You know, we've touched on mental health a second ago, but there was, you know, lots of ways to get through that and overcome it and organising regular team meetups. As I said, you know, team events, team socials, there are lots of ways you can do it. You know you we can. You know, we go and meet in because we all work from home. We go and meet either nearby someone's house. So, you know we're taking turns. To get around, we're heading up to the Northeast next week to meet with one of the team on their turf if you like. And it's nice. It's nice to be out of the office. It's nice to meet to, to, to get out there and you know nothing like a bit of a car journey to be having a good chat with a teammate and a catch up.

IAN: So, look, you know, previously, you know, it used to be look, come and work for us. This is what it's all about. But now you need to be an even more attractive employer, and one that is now turned into the candidates' market where they're picking and choosing and why they should work for you and what's in it for me. And is there going to be enough money? And what's the development and? And we actually had a situation with we hear this quite a bit actually, so it's not really a situation where people, when people hear about the growth aspirations of some of our clients and the program that they're in and they're going to be doing the vision and the mission and really, really identifying the purpose of the business, people stay even for less money. And we're hearing this. Kind of like on a, you know, every couple of weeks we hear someone talking about this now, but it's down to us as the MSP to position ourselves, isn't it? And to become that attractive employer that people want to come and work with? So, what do we need to be doing differently? What are some of the key things that are absolutely no brainers that the MSP needs to be considering in their recruitment process?

DEAN: Well, one of them. You just hit on the nail on the head straight away, which is share the vision. Everyone needs to be part of the journey. You know, I had an old chief exec who, he would always say that really interesting excitement for the boardroom and the rest of the team. The guys, you know that are in the trenches, day in day out that you can't build your business without. They are unaware of many of the exciting things, but also many of the potential issues that the business was facing, people pull together when there's a collective course and you know everyone's on the same page. So, I think that is really important to share good and bad. And one of the things in recruitment as well is managing expectations of candidates you know. Don't be afraid to tell them what the challenges are going to be in the role. People want interesting work and I think that it is really key thing that make work interesting.

We've got a client who they're actually going to the biggest issues in first line. Particularly now it's hybrid and remote. Because they are logging and flogging tickets and who wants to leave that for long? You know, you don't want to be in those roles where you feel there is no scope for progression, and you're not learning anything because it's all repetition. So, they're actually outsourcing first line, and they are creating pods of second and third liners to do exactly what we talked about earlier. Mentor, bring people through, let them experience, you know, technical issues that are above what they typically be doing and it creates collaboration and teamwork. So, I think I think that's very important to you know, just consider just because you've done things a certain way all the time doesn't mean that's the right way, or it can't be improved. And that leads to better service for your clients, the more engaged your people are. The better the services. But things we see not really, and I think I guess that’s what's the most important thing.

DEAN: Let me give you some real-world examples here. One of the things we do a lot for our clients is we do the market research for them. We gather market intelligence, whatever the role is that they're recruiting for, we go out and we see what the competition is doing, what the salary is, what the benefits that should be offered. And you know, what's the candidate market like out there in their local if you like. They also have to help themselves. And if you're not presenting an attractive image online. Candidates do their homework, they do their due diligence more than ever before. As I said, it's very much a candidate driven market. So, you know, I'm sure you talked to your clients about how to market and present themselves. It's so important. You don't have to have a careers portal, it helps if you do, but if you're if you're only recruiting infrequently still have a page on your website which talks about what it's like to work in that place and keep that updated, you know and keep pushing out some information about what it's you know. Your employer brand. There's a employer branding's been around for a long time, but it’s not rocket science, it's just, you know, making your business look like a nice place to be. But I think it's also very important to walk the walk and not just talk about it. So, you know, invest in the office. You know, you might not have huge budgets, but ergonomic chairs, giving you guys good tech to work with whilst monitors nice screens. You know you're an IT firm, you know technical people enjoy those things, so create that kind of environment.

We've got a client here. They've got a location problem. They work with highly secure government contracts, so people have to be at the location to be able to log into the systems. So, they spent a lot of money on their office because they know people need to come in there and it looks fantastic. It's a, you know, it sells itself. Another client don't have that similar budget, but they bought ergonomic chairs and the desks that rise up and now again it's a small investment, but it says a lot. It says that you're thinking about it, the environment that people you know are going to be in for 8 hours a day sometimes. I think the key thing as well is be authentic, be yourselves, know who you are, know what your values are a live those values. Don't just stick them up on the. Wall and that's. It you've got to demonstrate those values. Because that's what resonates with people. It's not always about money. If you can't pay top salaries, what else can you offer? There are some quick wins in there. Give an extra couple of days holiday, you know, put some flexible, put some flexibility in there, give a good pension. I know it costs but it does make a difference. People want to know about these things, more than ever. Particularly, more senior candidates. Can you give a profit share? We've got a client, but they give a profit share and when they win, the whole team wins and shares in it. Same client actually, when you've been with them for five years, they offer you a month sabbatical. Exactly, people go and tick the bucket list. You know, they really do. And that team, their retention rate is fantastic. It's off the scale, nobody wants to leave that business.

IAN: For these people, isn't it? That's the that's the thing, isn't it? At the end of the? At the end of the day, yeah.

DEAN: But you know tickets to events you know doesn't have to cost the Earth, and I think you know free lunches now and then is important. Training developing certification. That costs money. You can get vendor support for those things. You know it doesn't have to cost you the earth to do it. Again, it's part of demonstrating that you take the development of your people seriously. And the one that my biggest bug bear is a job description is not a job advertisement.

IAN: I love it.

DEAN: A list of bullet points on a job page or on a job board is not engaging. It's about how are you going to get the attention, so understand who you want in the role or who's your perfect candidate. Look at your existing team. Who would you want to replicate? If you could, you know, ask your team what it's like to work here, good and bad, and that will help you form a picture of who would be the perfect fit for this role. And then you start thinking, OK, what's going to attract them and that helps you with your, you know, writing your, your, your job, stick it in ChatGPT if you know it will do the job for you with a little bit of editing and direction. So. So yeah. You do need to work hard to attract people. And but and think about it, you know D and I very, very, you know, it's very, very important that that's taken seriously. I I think just two more points in this actually something which I see from all shapes and sizes of organisation which does let them down is get your contracts right, your employment right.

IAN: OK.

DEAN: I'm just reviewing those. If you've got everything that's confusing or you've not got consistency across your team or across your organization, they're going to pick up on that and all that does it slows the process of securing that candidate down. Because rather than it being a review and say it's a review question, come back and if it's, if it's a larger organization, off to go to HR and that just slows that process down. And with it being a candidate driven market, candidates are having multiple offers. You want to be able to be first in the race to secure the people that you want exactly. On the very last point, don't be a Maverick. Take it seriously. Think through the process of how you're going to interview people. We had an ex-client, ex for a reason. They’d find great candidates, but then they kind of have a really awful wall interview style. Even one time starting with are you a show pony or way across? It just doesn't set the scene. You know, if you're not the best person to be interviewing, don't do it.

IAN: No, no, no, exactly that.

DEAN: Get someone from your team who you know. Let them sit with your team. You know, let them spend half a day in the business. Get on the field for it.

IAN: That's absolutely fantastic. Thanks for that, Dean. Talk to me about the importance of employer brand and what is it and why is it why is it so important?

DEAN: Most businesses are focused on marketing to prospective clients to win new business. An Employer brand is focused on attracting people into your business. I've always thought employer branding content is as important to attracting people as it is to attracting clients, the old adage people by people. You know, we have a quote on our website no matter. What business you're in, you're always in the people business. You can't get away from it and you work with clients. You form relationships with clients, but just like your form relationships with your team. So, employer branding is about just as you would present your company brand. It's how you present your brand. Why people would want to work here, and it's very important in terms of values it has I mentioned earlier, being authentic, living your values. So, think about why you started that business in the first place. You know, is it giving the best possible service that you can to your clients? Is that one of your values? Is it that you treat people fairly? You know, did you care about the environment, you know? Whatever your values are. It's called a value proposition, and that then shapes your employer brand, but those values also resonate with the clients, because that's how you attract them in the 1st place you built. You know you there's some commonality, they trust you, they have faith in you and so those values run through your business for both attracting new employees but also to attract candidates.

What we see a lot of is I've always believed that human based stories, human based content, you know, we always we why do why do we write a case study? We write a case study because it tells a story about how you've helped the client. And that resonates with other clients who may be in a similar sector, for instance, or have the similar issues. So why not tell stories about your team where they came from, what their background was, what their interests are, that because, again, that helps when someone leaves your business, we talked about this earlier. It creates a gap, particularly if they had good relationships with some clients and when the client makes a phone call, Ohh I know, we've talked to John. I'm really sorry John's no longer with the business. What can you, he is inside out. So that the personal touch, particularly the smaller MSP market, is very, very important. So that's really what employer branding is. It's about the people side of your business.

IAN: Yeah, we've touched on this a couple of times, and I've mentioned this quite often to our clients is that recruitments and marketing process isn't it. You know, you're just talking about value proposition, you're talking you know about, you know, why the content the how you bring people in, how you build a case study for people to resonate. Ohh, I would like to do that and what you know if you think about you know a blog on your website of your MSP, you're writing a blog because you want people to feel safe and secure, for example because cyber security is a number one thing and you don't want to get hacked? Yeah, but likewise, you know the case study and the employee page on your website is just as important because people are going to go. Hey, that's me. I don't know much about IT, but I'd love to be as experienced as Dean or whoever it might be. And I'd love to be in that event. Oh, look, they're having so much fun, and they have so much, so much great fun. And the actual fact one of our clients is just recruited someone he's really, really struggled for many, many years to get the right people. He's coming to the coming to the group and we've given him some referrals and to some people to help him with that. He's now recruited someone and literally two out of the three people have said to him we just, I just loved your about you page because it told me that you've been out on a boat and you've done this and it's, and it's not just about getting stuff. It's about being part of the community of that business and being part of the, you know, the family and the way that they work and all of that kind of stuff. And that's this whole branding thing like your business brand. It's the employer brand. You know we when we talk about. The vision and values, it is for your clients, but it's. also, to make sure that you recruit the right people, isn't it? You know, in terms of the values as well. So I really love that really. Love that point, that. Resonates the screaming towards the end of the show. But there's one thing I do want to talk about, which no one's ever heard about before. And now you're going to explain which is human based content. But bear in mind I just said about marketing. Many people might be able to guess where this is going. What's human based content and why do we? Why do we need it in? This process thing.

DEAN: It's exactly what we just mentioned earlier. You know it. It's telling that people story it’s bringing a human touch to something. If any of the listeners go onto LinkedIn, look at the stories that typically are pumped out by IT firms. You mentioned cyber a second ago and they'll all be saying pretty much the same thing. The engagement rates are very low, very few reposts or comments and the rooms that are probably from people within that company themselves, the minute you see a story and I checked this morning. There was a story by a tech, and they were talking about literally, you know, our team does this, we work with these clients. They had one repost. That was it. Further down. There's a story about a chap who is telling that he has been to Mexico to have a treatment for his multiple sclerosis that received 4231 likes. At the time I looked at 254 comments and 100 and 25 reposts. He's still an IT guy. But he's sharing a personal story. And that is, you know that would do something today about Down syndrome Day again and avalanche of people in support ultimately matter what happens. When a member of your team says I need to go home now, my daughters desperately in hospital, would you say I'm sorry, No, you're going to resolve that first line ticket that's just come in. No, you drop everything because ultimately, we are human beings and we resonate and we'll do anything for anyone when they're in need and that's what human based content is for me about for me. So, it doesn't have to be dramatic. And you know, we had an instance when I ran an MSP and this would be a, so rather than just talking about cyber, tell the story behind it. We worked with a conveyancing firm. They contacted us. We think one of our clients has been hacked. I hope it's not come through us now. We were pretty confident because we had them very well locked down, so we spoke to that client on their behalf. And the story has come about because law firm had received an e-mail from her saying that the monies that they have on account for her, she would like them to be transferred now. And here's the new account details that rang an alarm bell, so thankfully they made contact when we spoke with her, she'd not sent the e-mail, she did recall that she received an e-mail from the surveyors, a while ago. She thought it was odd because the house sale had gone through several months before, but the e-mail from the surveyors said that her report. She didn't think about it. She clicked the link. Nothing happened. That was the last she heard. But that's how they got in. So, we were able to establish that it was the firm of surveyors that had been hacked, but if it wasn't for our clients being well trained in not to recognise, that could have been a disaster, because that was several hundreds of thousands of pounds. So that's just an example of don't just talk about, hey, we do cyber, give some real-world examples of how you've helped somebody with a with a potential cyber threat.

IAN: That's brilliant. Dean, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you today. And I think and I know we can rattle on for this, for many, many hours. So, we're probably going to drag you back into the vault another time to give us some more of your amazing insights. You know the opportunity that we've got here is that we get this right it's, you know, it's going to save you on recruitment. It's going to save your time. You're going to build a. Great business and not only have sticky. Retention with your clients from an MSP point. You also have a sticky retention from your employees and build a great community really, you know, because everybody you know enjoys working.

One thing I would just do is I would just remind you that in Episode 115 I ran a very short podcast just on how to retain people within your organization and if this episode is tricked a few lit a few light bulbs in your mind then then go and check that out as well. Just bringing this to a close again thanks for your help and support today Dean, do you just want to share with everybody kind of how they can get hold of you if they want to continue the conversation about your methodology and what you can do to help.

DEAN: Sure, yeah, absolutely. Just go to humnize HUMNIZE.com. I thought it was a good name until I realized I have to explain it every time to people. But yeah, go to humnize.com, I'm sure they can get in touch to yourself as well if you'd be so kind. But look, we love giving out free advice, treatment agencies don't always have to charge to do a good job. We like to share information and help people out. And so, yeah, please feel free to get in touch and thank you so much for the opportunity to talk today.

IAN: No, no, no problem. And if you know, and if, as I say, if this has made you think a little bit more. Right, this is, this is just one part of growing your business. Then I'm going to drop a link in the show notes here today to the MSP Mastery quiz where you can go and scan and score your business against our model and you can see, you know. Kind of where your potential for growth is in potential for scalability. And it's absolutely free and just costs you everything. Get a great little free report as well, which is. So, look, Dean, thanks ever so much for your help and support. I look forward to catching up with you soon. You take Care now.

Thank you very much.

OUTRO: So, I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, I'd love it if you could lead a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to learn more about how to take your MSP to a million or if you're already there, Go faster then. Come and join Stuart Warwick and myself in the scale with confidence Facebook group. The link is in the show. You can enjoy the rest of your day and I look forward to connecting with you soon.