Technical Staff: Challenge Them

Encourage your technical staff to learn about higher-end networking solutions. Remember, higher-end solutions are generally worth more per hour. Most of your technical staff will have the skills to set up small LANs, do troubleshooting, cleanup jobs and desktop rollouts. But in this article you'll learn why you should also start booking up some of their time to work on higher margin projects that have more long-term potential. Professional Gratification Keeps Your Technical Staff Happy By moving your staff into more advanced networking projects, your technical staff is going to get a lot more professional gratification. “Techies” really like to work on things that tax their knowledge. Your technical staff members find it very frustrating to come back from studying for a certification exam and feel like all they're doing all day is rescuing the lost Microsoft Office toolbar, or telling people to reboot, or to disconnect and reconnect. Challenges Lead to Retention Your technical staff will get a lot more gratification out working at their true technical peak and being exposed to greater and greater challenges. So, in many ways, training becomes a great retention tool. The flip side: if your technical staff is constantly working on projects that they feel are “beneath” them, you may start losing staff to competitors. Complex Networking Projects Lead to Longer-term Client Relationships. Developing long-term client relationships is also a lot more gratifying for your technical staff. They get to work with clients over an extended period of time. Your technical staff gets to know clients real well. They get to build relationships. Your technical staff gets very attached, and that's generally a good thing (as long as your technical staff remains even more loyal to your firm). The Bottom Line about Technical Staff In this article, you've been introduced to the importance of challenging your technical staff. Copyright Notice: Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}