Every business deals with employee turnover. Employees are inevitably going to move on to new jobs, new locations, or entirely new careers. However, it’s important to keep an eye on turnover rates. These rates can indicate the health of your company’s culture. And, by reducing these rates, you’ll reduce costs and resources spent hiring.
One role that is especially consequential when it comes to turnover is your IT technician. This is especially true for companies with only one or two technicians. The reason for this is the importance of knowledge and familiarity when it comes to a business’s network and systems. An IT technician most likely holds the accounts, passwords, and expertise required for many, if not all, of the technical systems. So, what happens if your technician leaves? It can be extremely difficult and time-consuming to hire and train a new technician to take over these areas. That’s why it’s a good idea to have IT backup— and an excellent and affordable way to do this is through IT outsourcing.
How Technician Turnover Negatively Affects Organizations
Before we get into how outsourced IT can help minimize the effects of technician turnover, let’s first understand what these effects are.
Hiring is Expensive
Hiring new employees is expensive. Many costs are associated with hiring, such as recruiting costs and training costs. Whether your company has an internal recruiter, you may have to pay to advertise the position and spend time screening and interviewing candidates. Then, even once you have found someone to fill the role, it can take weeks or even months to get them fully up to speed on the position requirements. During that time, you or other employees may have to take time out of your workdays to help out.
And, depending on how long it takes to find the right person, there might be other costs. If you can’t fill the role quickly, someone will have to take on the essential responsibilities until you find a candidate. Not only will this employee need to take time away from their actual role, but if they aren’t well-versed in your organization’s network, they’ll need to spend much more time researching and learning.
Technician Turnover Hinders Progress
Technology is constantly evolving, with new solutions and cyber threats being created all the time. Your IT technician’s job is to stay updated on these things. They’ll monitor and maintain your systems to keep them secure from new threats, and they’ll implement new solutions that will help improve your business. However, when your technician leaves, this strategic approach is stopped in its tracks.
As you hire and train a replacement, your network might be entirely overlooked. Sure, eventually, your new technician will begin their own process on improving your technology environment, but all progress may be lost until then.
This loss of progress is especially detrimental in technology roles because each organization’s infrastructure and network is so different. A new technician may need to learn entirely new systems and skills before they can pick up where your old technician left off.
You May Lose Important Information
Your IT technician holds the keys to much, if not all, of your technology. These keys are things like access credentials, passwords, vendor relationships, and more. And this information is what keeps your technology, and therefore your business, running smoothly.
Hopefully, if your technician chooses to leave, they will have all of this information compiled to pass on to their replacement. However, this isn’t always the case. It may be because they don’t want to take the time and effort to gather everything, or it may just be that something happens unexpectedly and prevents them from returning to work. Either way, trying to gather all of this information after your technician has left is extremely time-consuming and frustrating.
How Outsourced IT Helps
Looking at the potential negatives of losing your IT technician, is there any way to prevent these outcomes? The best way to do this is with backup IT help. You can choose to hire in-house backup, but IT outsourcing is a cost-effective option that may offer more benefits.
Technicians On Hand
By working with an outsourced IT provider, you will always have technicians on hand if someone leaves. You won’t have to deal with any of the hiring, training, or downtime typically associated with turnover.
Some IT providers (including Executech) even assign multiple technicians to your business so that if one technician leaves, others are already familiar with your network. A new technician can pick up right away without having to learn your organization’s unique systems and processes.
Important Information Is Always Accessible
When you only have one technician, you’re essentially putting all of your eggs in one basket. One person holds so much information. With outsourced IT, you have a backup. No matter what happens with one technician, there will always be others that have the same information. And like Executech, many IT providers will assemble all of the important credentials and passwords in one place for your accessibility.
In Conclusion
Outsourced IT is a great way to reduce the negative impacts of technician turnover. You can choose to outsource entirely, or you can use outsourcing as a backup option for your in-house technician or team. By expanding and diversifying your IT department, you’ll be implementing safeguards for technician turnover.
