EP167 - Embracing the Power of Culture Fit in MSP Recruitment with Jane Matthews & Ian Luckett

INTRO

In this episode of the IT Experts Podcast, we help you embrace the power of a cultural fit in your MSP.

Welcome to the IT Experts Podcast, the only podcast to help MSP's scale to 1,000,000 in if already there get to 5 and go fast 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. You're probably wondering what on Earth embracing a power of a cultural fit actually means. And today we're joined by Jane Matthews, who's an MSP recruitment expert. And we're going to explain exactly what that means, what it means to you, what it means to your team, what it means to your business and how powerful it can be when we get to this next level of kind of employee engagement and team building. So welcome to the show, Jane, how you doing today?

JANE

Yeah, really well. Thanks and thank you so much for having.

IAN

No problem. I know you've had a bit of a period of ill health where you've been under the knife with your knees and stuff with the doctors. So, but luckily we've managed to get you back into the show. So thanks ever so much for your time and effort preparing and getting ready as well. So Jane culture is a really interesting thing. Well, recruitment is a hard thing for MSPs, right? They just struggle with it all the time. There's either too many people and they're not enough, not good enough quality, or there's not enough people or they don't know what the role looks like. There's real massive, you know, challenge growing your MSP under recruitment. But today we're going to go a little bit deeper. We're going to go a little bit off tangent and we're going to talk about culture and why this is so important. But just before we get cracking, Jane do you want to just explain to everybody who you are, what you do and who you help?

JANE

Absolutely. Thanks again. So, I'm Jane from Wildcat Careers, my business. Absolutely love it. I help MSPs as you know, I help them build their teams. So, they in turn can build their businesses. So what do I do? I help them recruit their first, second, third line support teams, their network engineers. All those bits good bits and pieces that go with it, and the side the guy is absolutely passionate about growing teams and making sure that the people that I'm putting in and facing that culture fit, which we're obviously going to talk about and to making sure that they get the right people for their team to grow it and continue to grow it in the team.

IAN

Brilliant stuff. Thanks, Jane. So, look, let's have a little chat before we get into the meat and the bones of it. We come out of COVID, everyone's got went, you know, obviously went completely remote. Now we've got a bit of hybrid now we've got people who are who are calling people back into the office for a certain period of time during the week some people are staying remote. What's your kind of take on where we've been and where recruitments go in particularly for MSPs, if there are too many candidates. Is it a candidate market? Is it an employee market? What's your kind of barometer, what's the weather forecast for 2024 when it comes to recruiting?

JANE

So the weather forecast for 2024, I love that and that's fantastic.

IAN

I have to, actually for the show so.

JANE

No, no, that's good. I love it. Love being easier. So, I really do think you know we've gone through COVID. We ended up with you know the world falling of the side of the world, really. And people from the side of the world, just from the side of the world. We then switched to, you know, then becoming very much an employee or foyer market. Sorry, should I say? And then we switched again to being an employee market and things started to pick up because there were too many jobs, not enough people, I would say for 2024 and seeing at the end of 2023.

Where we are now there, it's pretty much a mixed bag. It's starting to settle out. It's starting to become level as level as it can ever be in this world. And I really do feel that it is now about making sure that what the employer is offering is, in line with what the employees are expecting and there are certain different generations. You've got to think about as well and the younger generation have been through COVID are quite insular and don't necessarily have the same skills that someone of my generation or your generation, I don't know which generations are in. I'm 45, how old are you, Ian?

IAN

Do you think I am?

JANE

I don't know. I'm 45.

IAN

(...) On the podcast. Sorry.

JANE

You know what I mean? I mean, it's like going is that, you know, I don't know about you, but I was brought up to graft and that was it. And unfortunately, you know, from their sort of their own, the younger generation have been pulling closed doors, you know, in quarantine basically, you know and, you know, going out once a day et cetera. Their communication skills have changed because they haven't had what we had, which was going into the office. Having all that learning from other people listening to other people, you know, having the collaboration, so there is a need for the younger generation to have that, I believe.

But there's also a need for companies to embrace the hybrid model of it because that is very, very much what is what I hear all the time, regardless of what generation the, you know the person's in because we now we can work remotely from lock down and it's worked. It's not been ideal whilst we're doing it, but we've proved to the world that we can do it. It's very important for people to do a hybrid model. You're going to win more of the creme of the pool of people that are out there, if you do that. If you don't do that and you want people in and I totally understand that you are depending upon location as well going to reduce that pool of you know, passive and active candidates. It's as simple as that. So for me that's really important. That's what I'm seeing out there, remote. The older you get, more people want remote just because it fits in the life at the younger model, you know yes, hybrid, but making sure maybe they're in the office definitely more days than they're not in the office, but it's about recruiting that right person and getting that culture fit right to having that trust. And once you get the culture and the values right within your business, then you can make sure that you've got those people that are matching those that will then bring those people in to ensure that you can.

IAN

So when we talk about culture, we're talking about, you know, how the business behaves and beliefs, but and that's kind of lines up as well with the vision and the mission and the value of the business. But it also lines up with the values and the culture of that individual as well, doesn't it? Why is this important? Why is it important, or first of all, for a business to define their culture and then how do we then find the right people with that right cultural fit. How do we identify them? So why is it important for businesses to bother with this stuff?

JAEN

Staff retention and creating enough lovely place and getting the most out of your staff and most of your staff means the most out of your staff, which will look after your clients, which will then help your business grow, you know, as you know. So it it's really important and what people think is that you they can create a culture, you can create culture, that culture almost all also happens naturally as well, so there's two elements to it. And so if you roll it back to values, values being, you know, enduring beliefs that guide an individual and you know advance an organisation, success, values have to come from the business. You know, all the people at the top, but they can't just be anything. It can't just be what they fancy them being. And I see that happen sometimes. And I'm sure you probably see that happens.

So for instance, what I mean by that, just say, well, listen, can understand it is that instance you said that, you're environmentally friendly, but then you drive around on a Ferrari?

IAN

Ferris could be quite environmentally friendly.

JANE

We'd have to get.

IAN

We probably don't want to go on that, but I'd say that a Ferrari would probably be more environmentally friendly than a Tesla, but we're going to put out there.

JANE

Let's not get on that soapbox.

IAN

People who, Dr. Teslas and then, but that's a whole another theory and a podcast. I think I know what you're where you're going with this sustainable... If you threw away and you didn't recycle, maybe if you could do that on the car analogy and so, say that to, who, up, but yeah, I get it. Sorry, back on track from there.

JANE

So you know, it's making sure that those values match the business owners, but the business owner believes it. You know, if somebody really wants good communication, if that's something that's really, really, you know, special to them and important to them. Then that's going to be one of their value. You know, it's as simple as that, if that's what they're expecting from their clients, that's what they should be expecting from their team from themselves. So that kind of pull us down. So you once you've got your values and you can have a look at the culture and the culture of an organization, is all about not having loaded lemmings at the same people. But having people that ohh yeah.

IAN

Knowing what lemmings are for the younger longingly, sorry.

JANE

That's alright. No, that means through the little guy. So what things were a little game on the PC, and a very long time ago. Gosh, and they were little, ittle, little little people, weren't they? Like you saw you used to try and basically got them dropping off the side of the cliff, and they all followed each other to do so.

IAN

It was all a long queue and they followed each other and it was a really crazy, if you look at it now in terms of the game, probably most people who look at it and going, that's not a game, that's just like some sort of weird thing, but basically people follow people was the...

JANE

All right.

IAN

Was the impetus on?

JANE

That yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So, yeah, you don't want a lot of people the same basically you won't have a lot of people saying, but you'll have people that are all working towards the same vision and the same goal and you're it's one of those things that coach is quite a hard thing to explain. I think for a lot of people, including myself.

IAN

No, it's, and you know what? I love this topic because it is this for me is how you turn an A-Team into a high performing team. You know, you don't you don't, you know it's the same with any team, whether it's a football team, whether it's a sports team, whatever team it might be, what we say this quite often in the Growth Hub is what got you here is not going to get you there. So it's a case of looking at your team. It's a case of looking at how do we upgrade the team. And we've, you know, we strongly believe in creating a good company and clear company vision, mission culture around business for, for all businesses. And you know we're only a small business, but we've you know, we've even done the same and crew team around that as well.

But the question is, and I love this question because it really throws people out and it's not designed to throw you out. But how do you measure how culture? What does you know, for people who are listening to this today, they're going, yeah, I get it. I want it. Where do I buy it from? How do I do it? Blah, blah, blah. Okay, which is kind of like, you know, it talks about it. It's something you line it around your people. But how would an MSP business owner sit there, look across his team, look across his business and know what a good cut, what a mediocre culture, and what a bad culture looks like. How would it show up in the day-to-day life?

JANE

It's a really interesting question. This next from outside this point of view, I find it quite easy to walk into a company and see what the culture is but for somebody when you're actually inside the business and it's your business and you're looking at it, it's very hard to see. You know most of the time what others can see, it's that whole, you know, looking out the window, see the window sort of things. So for me it's really understanding that the people in the team that you've already got the existing Members, what are what are their pluses and what makes them a really good team member and almost taking all those different people and pulling out what makes them good from a behavioral point of view. And then looking at your best team member and having a look at what makes you know, kind of almost shows them apart from the rest of the team. And then that is what you want to instill. And that's what you then want to get within everybody.

IAN

So how they behave around customers, how they solve the issue, how they communicate with people, how they get on with people and how they, you know and a lot of the time with MSPs, it's about fixing stuff. So they just try and fix it and then go. No, it didn't work right. It's your problem now and pass the ticket on to someone else. Or do they say you know what? I'm struggling a bit with this. Can I have a hand? I think I know what I think. I'm on the right lines. But I need a little bit of a hand. It could be on the help desk or on a project or some or something like that. So, guessing the transfers you know or on the on the opposite to that, you know, if you've got people who are packing up and making sure they're ready on time to go home at 5:00, you know, they take their lunch at, if not a little bit longer, don't help any other negative kind of things that that come out there.

JANE

Call over. It's the kind of, you know, do you want a plotter or do you want somebody who wants to excel? Yeah. Plotters are good in certain elements. So you've got your desk. If you don't want to. Yes, but for me personally, I always advise you know, MSPs is basically when we've got a desk is to build their desk with people, use the desk as first line support. Obviously that's we're talking about. And that desk then grows, you get the people that you build within that desk being first, second, third line. You've then got those people, then that can go out and do projects, etc. But it's identifying.

IAN

This is really interesting, Jane. So because what we're actually saying here is, is that the cultures that behaviours and you're saying that you want everybody to be the same, which is absolutely you know, right or as well as you can be from their behavioural point of view. But what we're not talking about here is we want everybody to be the same from their skill set and their experience point of view, that's a completely different thing, isn't it?

JANE

Absolutely. So you've got a text act, so you do it, you know, and you've got behavior stack. That's the way I look at it and it's a really good way to explain it. And he's obviously you get it, you getting the behaviour sometimes out of somebody in MSP when you say to them it's, you know behaviour stack and what's the tech stack you can reel off the tech stack. Absolutely no problem at all. And then they struggle with what's the behavior stack because that's not their mindset. So it's moving that mindset to go. Alright, how can I talk to you in a way that you're going to understand? What behaviours mean? So then it's me saying so. Are they chatty? Do you want some chatty? Do you want somebody who's communicated? Do you want someone who will roll their sleeves up? Do you want someone who will get stuck in? Do you want someone to go the extra mile? And then obviously the tech stack, you know? They can reel that off to the heart's content, probably too much, and have massive expectations, but we call that, The Golden Unicorn and we love The Golden Place, isn't it?

IAN

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. What are some of the things that MSP business unit can do to create a positive culture and you know I love that behavioral staffing. You might steal that you might see that on the web and not soon but later. Yeah. What is it that we do to create a positive culture in their business.

JANE

You haven't opened the safe.

IAN

Nice. Yeah. Like that album that they've got an open door policy, yeah.

JANE

Very much so, have a situation. Yeah. Don't just say, we have an open door. So obviously in our business and then that's what we have to say about it. No, it's reminding people that you know going over and seeing how people are getting in, is integrating themselves into the everyday and being interested in what people are doing, not just within work, but also outside of work. And so you get that chatting going on, you get that freedom, you get that comfortable feeling to be able to approach that person who owns that business because you think about it. And that person who's working in that business, it's all that person must be really busy, you know, I can't possibly go to them that happens quite a lot. But if you take the time to then as a business owner o and talk to them, they realise that you've got, they’ve got to, you know, you've got time for them basically. And so it’s obtaining that side of it.

IAN

Okay, so that's really cool. And as you say, it's kind of walking the walk and the shadow of the leader is a really important element here, for not only the business owner but also the business leader.

Let's talk for a minute about the kind of the third part, which is around. You've got a good culture in place, but how do you and you've got some great people in place. But we're now going into high performing, you know, training and development, personal development plans for some of the from your A-players I think will call them A-players, the key members of the team and how do you nurture and grow that talent from within so that they feel even more secure to go kind of above the extra mile so that they will go and do their computer certificates and they will go and do their Microsoft certificates and they will, you know, start to lead teams because not everybody, you know who's a great technician is going to make a great service manager, all about that cultural fit. But the people who are showing and exhibiting those leadership traits and you want to develop that, what can the MSP business owner do to, you know, to encourage and nurture that to help them grow?

JANE

It's ensuring that they know what they want you to know It’s from my point of view, when I actually speak to an awful lot of candidate. When I'm looking for people for different roles, a lot of the reason why people are leaving is because they're not getting the opportunities that they want they're feeling like they are stuck because no one's ever actually asked them what do they enjoy doing.

So if you can see somebody who's, you have this thing where people do this thing in business whereby, just because somebody is doing really well, doesn't necessarily mean they're happy. Yeah, they can be doing it. You know what I'm saying in. But if you don't talk, if you talk to them just because they're good at that doesn't mean want to be pigeonholed doing that.

IAN

So is what you're saying then by doing regular one to ones and I can hear all the clients who shy away from this, right now and all the people who think this is an absolute load of baloney,

So is what you're saying then, Jane, that by doing regular one to ones to make them feel loved and connected to your vision as your both plan and their development and answering any needs and probably getting some innovation as well, is a good idea.

JANE

Yes, and it really is pretty or not, I know it's amazing, isn't it? The stuff that you talk about works.

IAN

Money. We talk about that one every single week in the Growth Hub and yeah, and some people, when people get it and they do it and they dial up their energy because it's not their happy place to go and have a have a conversation that's not terribly tangible to start with and with their employees. It's like, what's the point in this? Why do I need to do this? Oh my God, this is a waste of time. But when they do it, they go ohh my word. You know, the things I've learned now from my team because I'm talking to them deeper level. You're understanding what's going on at home. If they want to share that, they don't have to share that and then how they can think. Ohh, would you be interested in looking at this? New technology or this? Yeah. Go on then. It's like, oh, my God. Like, it's just light bulbs. Go on. It's just...

JANE

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

IAN

And for those who are listening, who are guilty of this going, yeah, I should be doing that. Just be consistent. Just be consistent. You know out there and just every month or, you know, yeah, do it. Do it monthly every month, you know, sit down 5-10 minutes. In you know have...

JANE

Quite long.

IAN

No, it doesn't. And that's how we kind of build that connection and lean into to help them to, to scale and grow.

JANE

Thinking system and you're so, it’s so true. You got to want to do something once and then think that it's going to change the world. You need to be consistent. It's and it's like they you say those sort of 5-10 minute chats.

IAN

Okay. So just before we close down and ask Jane for a quick summary on what we've learned today, which has been a brilliant show. Absolutely loved it.

I just want to connect you guys back to another podcast that we did episode 143 about how to get more out of my MSP team where we share with you some kind of golden nuggets on which lines up with today's show. On how to, you know, help people perform better, how to help people be happier in their roles, and how to help you get aligned with what their what their KPI. So look the opportunity of getting this culture thing out-of-the-box on the table and active in 2024 is great because it's going too help you to connect a line and engage your teams much, much better than they are at the moment. And that team is going to be the team that's going to help you lift up and help you to, to support your growth plans and drive the business.

Jane, thanks ever so much again for your time in preparing and having a good crack and a good giggle and passing out loads of information to the MSPs on the show today, give us your top three tips. What's the three things that MSPs need to be focusing on in 2024 to really bring their culture out to help nurture it, to help build their businesses to lift them up?

JANE

Yeah, sure, of course Ian. So, it's really taking the time to understand. You've got your team to start with doing that list about what are their behaviours or that behaviour stack is then making sure that you're doing the one to ones that you know about and it's so important otherwise you will lose your and sadly and it's making sure that therefore then you're looking at the superpowers within your team and making sure that you really are playing to their superpowers, obviously in line with your business goals.

IAN

Fantastic. Thanks ever so much. And just before we shoot off. Jane, do you want to just explain to people if they want to continue the conversation with you about how to get the right people? Maybe you can help them find the right people for them. How can people get in contact with you?

JANE

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Ian. So you can phone your LinkedIn, Jane Matthews, you can phone your LinkedIn through our cat carriers. You can find me through in. Obviously, I was optimistic. Obviously they are just reach out, you know, e-mail addresses. Jane@wildcatcareers.co.uk.

IAN

Fantastic. That's brilliant. Well, look, wishing you and the business every success in 2024. Thanks once again and I look forward to catching up with you guys on the next show. See you later and take care.

OUTRO

So I hope you enjoyed the show if you did, I'd love it if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to know 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 notes. You go enjoy the rest of your day and I look forward to connecting with you soon.