As we bid farewell to another year, it's the perfect time to reflect on the past and set our sights on the future. For IT departments, embracing the new year often involves reevaluating strategies, streamlining processes, and leveraging innovative solutions.
As a passionate team of IT experts that champion all the ways in which bolstering IT can benefit businesses everywhere, we're so excited to guide you through some New Year resolutions that can revitalize your IT approach and bring success in 2024.
Resolution: Embrace the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in our IT operations to enhance efficiency and decision-making processes.
Why: AI technologies, such as machine learning and predictive analytics, can revolutionize how we manage and optimize IT resources. By leveraging AI, we can automate routine tasks, gain insights from data, and make proactive decisions that contribute to the overall success of our IT initiatives.
Resolution: Embrace automation to streamline repetitive tasks and enhance operational efficiency.
Why: Automation can significantly reduce manual efforts, minimize errors, and accelerate processes. By identifying opportunities for automation in routine tasks, we can free up valuable time for our IT teams to focus on more strategic initiatives, leading to a more agile and responsive IT environment.
Resolution: In 2024, commit to optimizing our cloud infrastructure for efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Why: Cloud technology is dynamic and ever evolving. Ensuring that our cloud services are optimized will enhance performance, reduce costs, and allow us to take full advantage of the latest features.
Resolution: Strengthen our cybersecurity posture to safeguard against evolving threats.
Why: As cyber threats become more sophisticated, prioritizing cybersecurity is crucial. Implementing robust measures, such as regular security audits and employee training, will fortify our defenses.
Resolution: Transition to proactive monitoring for early issue detection and swift resolution.
Why: Reactive approaches can lead to downtime and disruptions. Proactive monitoring ensures that potential issues are identified and addressed before they impact operations.
Resolution: Develop a plan to systematically upgrade legacy systems to modern, efficient solutions.
Why: Outdated systems pose security risks and hinder performance. Upgrading to the latest technologies ensures we stay competitive, secure, and aligned with industry standards.
Resolution: Conduct a thorough review of IT budgets to identify cost-saving opportunities without compromising performance.
Why: Efficient budget allocation is essential for achieving business objectives. Identifying and eliminating unnecessary expenses will optimize our IT spend.
Interested in learning more? Check out our blog on Software Sprawl.
Resolution: Implement or enhance collaboration tools to boost team productivity.
Why: Effective communication and collaboration are cornerstones of success. Integrating advanced collaboration tools will empower our teams to work seamlessly, irrespective of location.
You can learn more by reading our blog on Microsoft viva or click here to see all of the powerful collaboration tools and services we offer to amplify your team’s engagement and productivity.
Resolution: Prioritize ongoing training to keep our IT teams well-versed in the latest technologies.
Why: The tech landscape evolves rapidly. Investing in continuous training ensures that our teams are equipped with the skills needed to navigate emerging trends.
Here are some resources for internal training:
You can also access our past webinars for expert walkthrough on various tools and technologies that all IT teams should know.
Resolution: Stay abreast of the latest Microsoft solutions and integrate them into our IT ecosystem.
Why: Microsoft offers a suite of powerful solutions. Regularly exploring and adopting new tools can enhance productivity and keep us at the forefront of technological innovation.
Learn more about Microsoft tools and services that you can access through our trusted team.
As we step into 2024, let's embark on a journey of IT excellence. These resolutions serve as a roadmap for a successful and technologically advanced year. If you're ready to turn these resolutions into reality, our team at Managed Solution is here to support you every step of the way. Here's to a year of innovation, efficiency, and IT success!
Microsoft’s Viva Connections is one of four facets of the Microsoft Viva Suite along with Viva Insights, Viva Learnings, and Viva Topics. Viva connections, specifically, is an application that drills into the employee experience to enable connection and engagement like never before.
With remote and hybrid work settings becoming the norm, connecting your team and preventing isolation is more important than ever. Read on to learn more about how this powerful tool works and how you can implement it to better your organizations culture.
Viva connections’ goal is oriented around (drum roll please) …keeping people connected! It does this by offering users a a personalized view of news, conversations and groups with the same applications and devices they already utilize in their day to day, giving your employees have everything they need to stay engaged.
This application also focuses on enabling team members to contribute their ideas easily and freely, to ensure everyone’s voice is heard. Not only are you sure to gather key insights from your team, but you can drill deeper into them with polls and surveys.
These features and capabilities are imperative tools that allow you to create a culture where everyone feels their voice is heard and build trust in a fun and easy way!
Furthermore, Viva Connections lets you curate your dashboards to provide fast and easy access to company resources, such as events, holidays, even health and wellness reminders! With Microsoft Viva Connections, you can have all the benefits of a remote workspace, while still maintaining that ‘togetherness’ feeling of an in-office setting.
Viva Connections amalgamates content from Microsoft 365 services like SharePoint, Teams, Yammer and more—into a fully-integrated and personalized, singular view for every employee. You can even integrate Viva Connections with other services such as stocks, weather forecasts, and vacation/ holiday schedules to boost engagement beyond Microsoft 365 content.
What ultimately sets Viva Connections apart from other engagement platforms is how customizable and scalable the service is. With Viva Connections, you can build your apps for specific objectives (as needed) and continue to personalize content to improve users’ overall experience as your company grows!
Viva Connections combines the power of your SharePoint intranet with Microsoft Teams, Yammer, Stream, and other Microsoft 365 applications to allow companies to create and display more intentional content for their employees. These functionalities are delivered through three primary aspects of the application: Dashboard, Feed, and Resources.
As we mentioned, the Viva Connections Dashboard lets you to create a customized experience with Dashboard cards that give your employee's access to the most useful content, tools, and task lists for them. It is essentially a digital toolbelt for your team that allows you to pick the best resources for your current needs -- and change them out as you grow and evolve.
The Feed on Viva Connections allows users to connect from a tailored view and explore important announcements and relevant information -- and join in on conversations throughout the organization. You can optimize your Feed by delivering SharePoint and Yammer communities together.
Resources are the navigational links that are set up and customized in the SharePoint app bar from the home site. These resources will get displayed on both the desktop and mobile instances of Viva Connections.
In the mobile app, users can view resources by selecting the Resources tab. This type of functioning provides users with a familiar navigation structure and allows them to open sites, pages, news, and more—right from their mobile devices.
It’s no secret that better engagement leads to higher creativity and productivity. However, a huge challenge for businesses in the remote era we find ourselves in, is developing a culture where that kind of engagement flourishes.
What we (and obviously, Microsoft), have found, is that by connecting and unifying your employee’s, you can build that spectacular culture and enthusiasm in your workplace. Viva Connections allows you to do just that in following ways:
Delivering a modern, custom experience by pushing relevant content, information, and resources to your users in one place, enables a more purposeful way for your team to engage.
Personalizing your engagement platform not only makes the experience more tailored to your team members, but it also makes it easier for them. By customizing the dashboard to your preferred settings for navigation, appearance, and etcetera… you can simplify and therefore streamline communication throughout the application.
Keep your eyes on the prize, so-to-speak. If your goal is to build connection and unity within your company, then you need to get involved with resources that are built to specifically target that.
Ultimately, finding an application or tool that fits your teams’ specific needs for improved connection can be a major step to reaching your engagement goals.
Viva Connections integrates seamlessly into with Microsoft Teams where users will be able to access it. Your organization can easily deploy Viva Connections by building onto existing capabilities in Microsoft 365. Click here and let us help you and your team adopt viva connections today!
Since the pandemic began in 2020, businesses have faced one financial strain after another. The economic state we’ve found ourselves today has certainly raised concerns. Although we are not currently in a recession -- most experts agree that we may be heading for one in the following year.
That being said, no one can really predict the future – especially not when it comes to economics. However, we can prepare for it. Regardless of what is thrown your way, rest assured that there are tools and resources that can help you can tighten the financial belt while also increasing revenue.
One key area of opportunity is in your very own IT infrastructure! In fact, there are many ways that you can leverage and optimize IT assets for growth, even during economic downturns.
Reducing costs are important for an onslaught of obvious reasons, but you may be surprised to find just how much an outsourced IT infrastructure fit can help your company’s cost-reduction.
Having fully staffed senior expertise in-house can be expensive. By outsourcing, you can provide your team and clients with the support of knowledgeable IT professionals at an affordable price. You can even find a plan that is customized to your business’s specific needs – learn more here!
Leveraging a quality MSP is not only a wise-investment in-and-of itself, but the money you save by making this calculated switch is then free to be invested further into revenue-building initiatives. More on than below.
As we mentioned, saving money by utilizing external IT will allow you to re-invest that money into your revenue operations. But furthermore, by putting necessary but mundane tasks into the hands of outsourced IT support, you and your team are free to build upon key strategic ideas to bring in even more (you guessed it) revenue.
This makes outsourced IT a wise investment of both time and money, and only enables your company more access to resources that will allow it to thrive in any climate. Not to mention, you’ll be advancing your customer service during a time-period where nurturing long-term business relations is especially crucial.
With a quality MSP, you’ll still be able to meet your IT needs and while also satisfying the needs of your customers. Quality IT technicians with excellent customer support are a critical part of maintaining the business of clients.
It is important to note that where you outsource to is a critical part of your success. International IT companies are notoriously unsatisfactory for callers. Likewise, a spread-thin in-house IT team simply won’t be able to meet the demanding needs of customers.
That is why we encourage you to look for companies who can offer 24/7*365 support on a national level. This quality service allows you to really boost your position in the eyes of clients, form those lasting relations, and reap in new business via word-to-mouth marketing from satisfied clients.
Not only does having the support of an MSP allow you to capitalize on areas of opportunity, but it also ensures that your key data is protected. It’s no secret that hackers are increasing their attacks daily, and they know that economic stress leaves companies vulnerable and spread thin.
Thriving though economic decline makes maintaining security, compliance, data protection all-the-more important. This can be achieved with a pro-active IT management approach when you leverage the support of outsourced IT experts.
In short, working with an MSP will enable to you focus on the important strategic decisions while also ensuring your data is secured.
In conclusion, as we go forward into the economic unknown of 2023 considering IT outsourcing can give you a leg up in the game. The right managed service provider can allow you to reduce costs, increase revenue, and keep that precious data protected in even the most tumultuous climate.
Also do keep in mind that even outside of economic crisis these benefits remain true for clients that utilize an MSP.
“Our switch to Managed Solution was like a breath of fresh air. They carefully and competently analyzed our entire ecosystem and suggested changes (not one option, but multiple) to better our systems. There were a number of cost efficiencies put into place…”– Jeffrey G. Penta, CEO, San Diego Eye Bank”
By: Amanda Hawthorne- Director of People and Culture
No matter your role in the workforce, you’ve surely heard by now that we’re not only in the midst of a global pandemic, but we’re also seeing an epidemic of people leaving their jobs. According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report released earlier this month, 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs in December 2021. Though that number is a slight downtick from the month prior, the number of quits is still outpacing years prior; in fact, more Americans quit in 2021 than ever before recorded. The Great Resignation’s acceleration of employee turnover just adds to the difficulty of running a business in these challenging times. So, what can employers do to cope? What’s the solution?
Here, we explore some of the ways to increase worker satisfaction and reduce turnover -- and be ready for the inevitability of some churn within your workplace.
But any efforts to increase retention may fail if you haven’t first understood the reasons for employees leaving in the first place. Let’s explore some common themes for employee resignations in today’s work environment:
Employees leaving to handle caregiving responsibilities. It’s undeniable that Covid-19 exposed serious gaps in our country’s caregiving infrastructure. Some parents have dropped out of the workplace because of the intensive care burdens of young children and the lack of available daycare facilities – not to mention the increasing costs of such care. Others are leaving to care for an elder parent because long-term care facilities are expensive and perhaps less desirable during the pandemic. Still others have school-aged kids at home who just aren’t going to make it through Zoom school without supervision. The choice to leave the workplace may have been most common among caregivers whose jobs require their presence onsite, versus remote or schedule flexibility, but even those whose jobs allow such flexibility may find the competing pressures of work and caregiving to be in conflict – and overwhelming. It’s not surprising that some of these people decided to leave the workforce or seek out new opportunities with additional flexibility.
What can employers do? Employers should remember that employees are people, too – with complex lives and competing responsibilities beyond their paid employment. Consider whether offering benefits such as childcare subsidies or backup childcare assistance could benefit your workforce. These benefits can be a win-win for employees and employers, offering much-needed assistance to workers and potentially a tax credit for the business offering child are subsidies. Many employers already offer access to an Employee Assistance Program, which can offer referrals for child or elder care resources. If this is something you offer, make sure your employees know about the benefit – EAPs are easy to forget if you’ve never accessed one before.
Employees leaving for greener pastures: more flexibility, stronger benefits… Now that we are through the initial shock of being in a pandemic, when many people may have held steady in jobs they might have otherwise considered leaving, people are now starting to re-evaluate. Employees may be taking stock of their position on a total-rewards basis: what benefits is my employer offering? Are they helping cover the costs of healthcare for me and my family? Do I have access to progressive benefits coverage like telehealth? Especially as workers see peers leave their roles for greener pastures, they may be more likely to start wondering what else is available, and how their current opportunity stacks up.
What can employers do? Working with an insurance broker, companies can evaluate whether their existing benefits offerings are competitive. Employers must remember too that they are competing with larger companies for talent. It may not be possible to offer all the bells and whistles, but where can you really add value? You may want to work with your broker to survey your team to find out how they’re using their current benefits and where else they’re looking for you to assist.
Employers should also evaluate their workplace policies to see whether offering increased flexibility or other family-friendly policies could benefit their teams. At Managed Solution, we’ve offered varying degrees of remote work and schedule flexibility for years. Before the pandemic, this was more cutting edge, but as many jobs went remote for Covid-19, work-remote opportunities have become more of an expectation among workers. Now, employees are looking to their employers to understand what policies and programs will exist beyond the pandemic: will they continue to have access to remote work? Can they adjust start times to accommodate day-care or school drop off? Do you offer flexibility for part-time roles or job-sharing to accommodate those who need more time for caregiving? Now is the time for employers to start defining what the future will hold for their workers – and the more flexibility you can offer, the better!
Employees leaving to secure a raise. Inflation is real, and employees are aware of the rapidly increasing costs to even maintain a current quality of life. According to Bloomberg, “U.S. consumer prices soared last year by the most in nearly four decades, sapping the purchasing power of American families” -- and even as minimum wages have increased in parts of the country, “rising prices are eroding those advances.” For most workers, the best way to secure a significant wage increase is not to wait for an annual review at a current employer, where they may see a small cost-of-living adjustment, but to seek an offer at another firm.
What can employers do? Take time to look at your current team’s wages. How does it stack up to the market? Remember, too, that with the rise of remote work opportunities, you may be competing against wages on a national scale, as employees’ options are no longer limited to a local work market. Although it may not be possible to offer significant increases across the board, it may be prudent to identify key talent and ensure the individuals in those roles are paid appropriately. If base wage increases aren’t an option and you’re already paying market-fair wages, perhaps you can offer other creative incentives based on specific organizational outcomes… which may be written in a way that requires employees to remain employed with your organization for a specific duration to receive payment. (Future bonus opportunities may not be enough to overcome other significant deficiencies in employee satisfaction, so be sure there aren’t other underlying issues with workplace rigidity, culture issues, or lack of growth opportunities.)
Employees leaving a toxic or lack-luster work environment. As much as we’d like to think we can throw money at a problem to solve it (and sometimes that does help), recent data published by MIT Sloan Management Review suggests that a toxic corporate culture can be a top predictor of attrition – more than pay: according to the article, “a toxic culture is 10.4 times more likely to contribute to attrition than compensation… Our analysis found that the leading elements contributing to toxic cultures include failure to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; workers feeling disrespected; and unethical behavior.” With so many job openings, employees in such toxic environments can feel compelled to explore new opportunities in organizations that prioritize recognition, respect, and collaboration.
Additionally, many employees are feeling disconnected from their workplace without an office to visit. Employees may seek opportunities with organizations that prioritize team building, including those that offer virtual or hybrid events to help them get to know coworkers beyond their day-to-day work interactions. According to Angela Ashenden, citing findings from her co-authored paper (“Employee Workplace Technology Survey, 2020”) in an article posted on Reworked: “Although most of the technology basics are now in place to enable them to access their work tools remotely, employees highlight a lack of social interaction with colleagues (33%) and a lack of connection with what's happening in their organization (22%) as their biggest challenges with remote work.”
What can employers do? Employers should evaluate their own corporate culture. What are employees saying in exit interviews? What’s being reflected in employee surveys? Do you have a defined Code of Conduct or set of company values that outlines how your company engages internally and externally, to ensure that all team members feel respected? If these documents already exist, how are you reinforcing them on a day-to-day basis with your teams? Do your team members have ways to identify individuals whose behavior falls short of those standards, without fear of reprisal?
If you’re feeling good about the basic foundations of respect, inclusion, and equity within your organization, start considering how you’re engaging your remote or hybrid teams. Do you have an accessible intranet and collaboration tool like Microsoft Teams? (If not, let’s chat!) Are you helping team members connect on those platforms by announcing important company updates? Here at Managed Solution, we’ve leveraged Microsoft Teams to build community through Virtual Spirit Weeks, where our team members posted photos or responses to various topics. We were blown away by the responses to our prompts, such as “ManSol’s Got Talent” - where employees showed off their painting, cooking, athletic, and other skills. From virtual trivia night to a hosted virtual escape room, to “Quaran-teams” pods to connect folks across the organization for 15-minutes social breaks throughout the week, there are so many ways to help your team members feel connected on a social level.
Employees leaving for growth opportunities not available in their current environment. At the end of the day, most employees are looking for the opportunities to succeed at work – and the opportunity to grow into new roles within a company. If employees don’t see a clear path for growth within an organization, they may begin exploring ways to grow beyond it. Employees left in the dark about what opportunities exist in their organization, or who aren’t provided coaching support to take on stretch goals, may not want to languish in the same position forever.
What can employers do? First and foremost – make sure your employees know what opportunities exist! Particularly in a remote environment where there’s less of a chance someone can hear of something ‘through the grapevine,’ employers need to take care to publish job openings across the organization. Be sure to take seriously any employee who shows interest in an open role: at a minimum, someone in HR and/or the hiring manager should meet with that person to discuss the role, even if the person isn’t yet qualified. If that person isn’t yet eligible or suited to a role, help them understand the gaps – and provide guidance on how to close them! Engage your supervisors and managers in development efforts. Are they regularly meeting with team members to discuss performance and growth? And if someone in your organization has been promoted, how are you highlighting this story in your recruiting and internal communication? Employees want to know that internal growth is possible – and how to achieve it for themselves. Particularly for industries like IT, where there’s always something new to learn, consider how you are helping your team members learn. Can you offer professional development funding or tuition assistance? Reimbursement of certification costs? Outline these programs, and make sure they’re published across the organization. Helping people see opportunities and see your commitment to their achievement can keep employees committed to your organization for the long haul.
These are just some of the reasons employees are re-evaluating their careers during the Great Resignation. Whichever factors are driving turnover in your organization, making a concerted effort to uncover the reasons and address them will be critical for improving retention.
And while evaluating your strategy for retention is a must, employers must realize that it can take time to implement new programs or policies and see any impact. So, what to do in the meantime, when the Great Resignation is still underway? With the combination of a tight labor market and an acceleration of turnover, employers need to also be ready to engage in a competitive recruiting market to fill those inevitable openings. In many cases, this can mean looking to an outside recruiting firm for help.
Managed Solution has developed a consistent, proactive recruiting practice to ensure we’re connecting with qualified talent and building our pipeline for common IT roles, sometimes even before we have an active opening. But not every company is going to have a dedicated internal recruiting team building that pipeline even before it’s needed. Given today’s intensely competitive recruiting marketing, where candidates may have multiple offers in front of them, working with an outside recruiting firm can help your company improve success in hiring the right talent, fast – which is even more important when you get that unexpected two-weeks-notice letter from someone in a key role!
Do you have a critical opening you need filled yesterday? Just received a devastating two-weeks-notice letter from an employee in a key role? Let us know -- we can help!
By: Amanda Hawthorne, Director of People and Culture
Two years into the pandemic, it’s almost hard to remember life in the “before times.” At this point, it’s probably fair to say that Covid-19 might be our lifetime’s ultimate ‘disruptor’ – a word that, in Silicon Valley at least, usually signifies a unicorn organization poised to create a true paradigm shift in how the world operates. So much as changed in daily life since March 2020 because of the pandemic. Whether it’s new safety measures or even the foregoing of certain regulations (to-go cocktails, anyone?), the change is undeniable.
For many office workers, these changes are most noticeable in how and where we work. Many of us are now working and collaborating in largely digital workplaces. Whether they’re sharing files and trading gifs on Teams, or messaging colleagues over Slack, or spending yet another afternoon on back-to-back ZOOM calls, more people than ever are working remotely… and with yet another surge of cases and the fact that so many have embraced remote work, we don’t see this changing anytime soon. Remote work is here to stay!
As we adapt to these virtual work environments, business leaders had to rethink almost every aspect of their businesses. While this has often been about overcoming obstacles, it’s also been about re-examining what’s possible. In the world of HR, this shift has been perhaps most dramatic in terms of what’s possible with recruiting, and we’re so excited about the possibilities we’ve uncovered in terms of hiring in a remote world!
Managed Solution has long prided itself on being remote-friendly. As a technology services provider, we were early adopters of tools that allowed our team to work anywhere and everywhere. Even before the pandemic, much of our team worked from home a few times a week. Still, though, most of our employees were based in San Diego, CA, and most of us were commuting to a brick-and-mortar office at some point each week.
When we told our team members to start working remotely full-time during the pandemic, many of them began exploring opportunities for relocation – to their dream houses, to be closer to family, and even to be closer to the mountains for rock climbing! Before we knew it, our team was spread out across states and time zones.
Despite some early challenges with adding payroll in new states (who enjoys navigating the red tape of various state agencies?), we quickly realized the numerous advantages of having employees in different locations. For our 24/7 IT helpdesk team, we were able to staff different shifts in time zones that made sense for our clients’ needs – and our employees’ lives. Operating on a more national basis was not only good for our team, but great for our business.
Now, when hiring for our own vacancies, we began advertising our roles to candidates in these various states and were enthusiastic to see such high-quality resumes coming through our applicant tracking systems! Broadening your geographic search criteria gives you access to more candidates, increasing your likelihood of finding that perfect match!
But while we were singing the praises of a broader talent pool, we also realized that phone calls with candidates wasn’t going to cut it in this new world: video interviews were necessary to help us build a level of rapport with candidates that’s on par with the experience of in-person interviewing. Unfortunately, interviewing candidates on a video call isn’t always a no-brainer.
To help you get started on video interviewing (or to help you up your game!), here are some of our tried-and- true tips & tricks to ensure both a strong candidate AND strong employer experience in the interview process…
Ideally, this happens before you’ve even posted a role, but especially before you get to an interview, you’ll need to really understand the job itself: what skills are must-haves, which are on the nice-to-have list? Be sure to also dive into when and where this role could be performed: is this job suited to remote work in the short term, but eventually you’d require a candidate to commute to the office? If so, be sure to communicate that! Is a position remote flexible but the function needs to be performed during specific hours based on the time zone for your home office? Share that, too! Being clear about the role not only lets you recruit among the broadest talent pool, it also helps ensure a strong mutual fit with any prospective candidate -- and avoids an awkward situation down the road. Imagine accepting an offer, quitting your job, and showing up on the first day in your new role… only to discover that your understanding of your work schedule or environment was completely off?! No thank you! You’ll save yourself a lot of heartache as a hiring manager if you can get really clear on your job details before you start interviewing!
Start with the basics: map out your in-person interview strategy, including who was included and what the respective conversations were covering. Now, assess who else a candidate might benefit from speaking to. Perhaps now is the time to include a peer interview so the candidate can start learning who they’d be working with – not just After all, with in-person interviews, a candidate often gets to at least put eyes on the people they’d be working with. You must consciously create those opportunities in a remote work world! While you don’t want your interview process to become excessively slow – especially in today’s fight for talent – but you do want to have enough time for a clear picture of the candidate’s skills… and give them enough time to really learn what it would be like to work with you!
Include all pertinent details in an interview invite, such as the names and positions of those who will be involved in the call. Be sure the candidate has the contact info of at least one interviewer in case something comes up last minute. Consider providing your candidate with the specific goals of each interview phase so they have some idea of what will be covered: is this a technical interview? A hiring manager interview? Peer interview? Let the candidate know what to expect. Clarity is kindness, after all – and being clear about the who/what/why of the interview also gives the candidate the chance to prepare appropriate questions for your team. (And also makes it less ok if they haven’t prepared at least a question or two ahead of time!)
If your team is going to be on camera frequently for interviews, you may want to give them some guidance to help reflect positively on your organization. From displaying the appropriate dress code to a professional, neat background, to joining calls from a quiet space with good lighting… all can make your company appear coordinated and well-adjusted to remote work. Consider offering ring lights or monitor-mounted webcams to provide flattering lighting and angles – your interviewers will be more focused on the candidate if they’re not distracted by their own double chin in the video preview feed! Help your interviewers focus on the candidate’s video feed, or even direct them to look into the camera while speaking to give the feeling of eye contact. (Our Talent Advisor uses a sticker at the top/center of her monitor to give herself something to look at!) Remind your interviewers of good interviewing etiquette: close the door, turn off the laundry, silence your cellphone, have a glass of water nearby, and (at a minimum) have them skim the candidate’s resume in advance!
Help train your interviewers on how to handle the realities of remote work: dogs barking, kids stumbling into the room, lawyers who are definitely not cats… interviewing in this new world is sometimes as weird as it is wonderful. Remind your team to keep it calm and collected, and help put candidates at ease, even when things run awry. The pandemic has reminded us that, at the end of the day, we’re all just doing our best to hold things together. Being flexible when things don’t work out quite like we expected reassures a candidate that your company values authenticity and understands that an employee is a person.
When interviewing people from their home, you may see things in the background that give clues to a candidate’s life in ways you might not if they came into your office. Remind your interviewers to disregard anything they may see in the background which may suggest things about the candidate’s nationality, ethnicity, religious affiliation, marital/parent status, or other protected class status. (Remember, too, not to make assumptions based on what you’re seeing!) Give interviewers guidance on job-related questions to ask and consider rubrics for scoring candidates consistently across interviews. Work with your HR team or an outside consultant to be sure that your hiring criteria are valid and lawful, and to help you identify potential areas for bias.
Following CDC and other relevant guidelines, consider whether meeting a prospective candidate in-person is feasible, prior to issuing an offer. For some candidates, the chance to meet a potential manager gives them a better sense of your leadership style and interpersonal dynamic. For others, it’s reassuring to meet in person to help them trust that a job offer is legitimate before handing over their confidential details for a background check or I-9 form. If an in-person meeting isn’t feasible, you might offer your top candidates the chance to connect on a call with another employee who onboarded remotely or with a top performer in your org – not necessarily so that your employee can weigh in on the candidate, but so that the candidate can get a sense of what it’s like to work on your team – and feel confident that your offer is legit.
Many times, as interviewers, we’re so focused on getting answers to our questions that we may forget to reserve time for the candidate to ask us any questions they may have. Some successful interviewers preface their meetings by letting the candidate know he or she will have time to ask questions at the end: this can help keep a conversation on course while also giving the candidate the floor before wrapping up the call.
Implementing Microsoft Teams? Trying to map out an interview plan for a particular role? Looking for help in technical vetting of your top candidates? Just not getting enough qualified applicants for your open tech roles? Managed Solution offers a range of managed, professional, and technical services – including staffing! Our Talent Advisor can help you look at your hiring needs, improve your interview strategies, and connect you with our targeted solutions for staffing – remote or otherwise. Whether it’s working together on a Direct Hire Recruiting or Staff Augmentation Resourcing basis, or even helping you validate the technical skills of candidates your team has sourced, Managed Solution can take on the heavy lifting of hiring. And we’ll also be there each step of the way making sure you, your candidates, and your interviewing team has everything they need to be successful along the way!
By: Amanda Hawthorne, Director of People and Culture at Managed Solution
So you’ve got an opening or resource need on your team? Exciting! Managed Solution’s Staffing Services can help! But knowing where to start with an outside recruiting firm can be tough, and you may have a lot of questions about the process…
There are plenty of choices for service providers: so how do you know which is going to deliver?
Sometimes the exact resource or budget requirements for your position may be a bit hazy, and you may still be sorting out how exactly a new hire will engage within your team. Who can help you define your needs and understand a market-realistic hiring budget?
Everyone is already stretched thin today, and no one has time to interview a series of candidates who completely miss the mark. Working with a trusted Staffing Service provider like Managed Solution can help you quickly connect with pre-vetted technical talent so you can make efficient staffing decisions and get back to work with the right team!
Managed Solution is an IT service provider – which means IT people are our business. For over 20 years, we’ve been meeting talented engineers and connecting them with our clients across Southern California (and beyond!) to fulfill ongoing support or even project-based needs. In the age of remote work and the “Great Resignation,” it’s more important than ever to hire highly skilled and vetted engineering talent – and even harder to find them!
After hearing from client after client about the challenges they’re having in finding and vetting top talent, we saw an opportunity here: open our Talent Community to our clients, giving them access to the amazing people we’re meeting daily. (And as a bonus, individuals in our Talent Community have already been vetted by our Microsoft-certified engineers!)
Plus, since hiring our Talent Advisor, Kat Grunzinger, we now have a talent concierge to meet with our clients and really dive into their needs, to help define an opportunity for efficient recruiting. Kat has years of experience in the recruiting space and has a true knack for building quick rapport with candidates, diving into what they know (and don’t), as well as understanding what opportunities are truly of interest to them. She leverages this same inquisitive nature to consult with clients to understand what Staffing Services are best-suited to their needs – and which candidates will really fit the bill!
You may be asking, what’s it like to work with Managed Solution’s Talent Advisor?
Here’s what you can expect:
First, Our Talent Advisor will want to interview you! We’ve found the best way to understand the true needs of an organization isn’t to rely on a job description (which may be out of date or miss key aspects of what a position truly requires), but to go straight to the source: you!
As a hiring manager, you’ll have insight into your needs, your team, and your organization – even if you haven’t scoped out a formal job description yet, or if you haven’t gotten the chance yet to update the one that’s been on file for years.
Our Talent Advisor can help you outline the specific function that’s needed. She’ll be aiming to understand the ins and outs of your open role, so she can connect you to the right resources. Key questions she’ll ask include:
Our Talent Advisor will ask these key questions so she understands exactly what this individual will be doing on a day-to-day basis and how their success will be defined. This will help her articulate the opportunity to potential candidates - and help us avoid wasting your time with candidates who would fall short of expectations. This understanding will allow her to scroll through her mental Rolodex of people in our Talent Community so she can quickly connect you with any pre-vetted candidates that might align with your goals.
Understanding your needs can also help us align our Staffing Service offering with your ‘ask’ to ensure we’re helping you meet your need in a cost-effective manner.
Managed Solution offers several different Staffing Services to meet your IT hiring needs:
When our Talent Advisor meets with you to discuss your team’s needs, she’ll help you determine which Staffing Service is right for you.
Once a Staffing Service Agreement is signed, she’ll begin sorting through our existing connections within our Talent Community and will reach out to appropriate passive candidates on your behalf.
When we find suitable candidates – aligned to your role in terms of experience, skills, location, culture, and career goals – we’ll pre-vet them with our Microsoft-certified engineers and then present you with their talent profiles (a fancy term for their resumes, catered to your position). Ideally, they’ll all look good on paper, and then it’s time for you and your teams to interview!
Our Talent Advisor will work with you to define your own vetting process for the opening – who will be involved in the interviews; when/how interviews will be conducted; etc. Then, she’ll coordinate scheduling and share pertinent information to the candidate so they can be on-time and ready to discuss your opportunity, whether that’s in person at your office, or via Microsoft Teams video interview. (We can even send out a Microsoft Teams meeting bridge for you and the candidate to connect on!)
During the interview, you’ll get a sense of your own as to whether the candidate meets the eligibility and suitability requirements of your role. Our Talent Advisor will check in after your interviews to hear about what went well, what concerns still linger, and what next steps look like. Our Talent Advisor will also get feedback from the candidate to ensure a strong mutual fit before moving ahead in the process. This two-way flow of information and feedback is one essential for effective recruiting services – and helps ensure that by the time an offer is issued, you’re confident it will be accepted.
Having a strong rapport with your Talent Advisor can help you move through the hiring process faster, more effectively, and with the outcomes you’re looking for. Sometimes hiring managers hesitate to share negative feedback about a candidate’s skills or experience (because who likes giving bad news?), but we encourage open communication during this process. Understanding exactly what is or isn’t working helps us ensure a better outcome on the next candidate. And if things are going well, timely communication is even more important: you’re more likely to get an enthusiastic “yes!” in response to an offer when the candidate feels the process has moved along at a natural clip, and they’ve received timely, positive feedback. Plus, a strong rapport with your Talent Advisor also allows her to share honest feedback from candidates about your position, interview process, and the candidate experience.
Want the inside scoop about working with our Staffing Services professionals? We sat down recently with Kat Grunzinger, Managed Solution’s Talent Advisor, to talk about her professional background in recruiting and her hopes for Managed Solution’s Staffing Services.
Here’s what Kat Grunzinger, Managed Solution’s Talent Advisor, wants you to know!
A: “I want hiring managers to know that I’ve been in their seat! I know how challenging it can be to find, vet, and hire the right people for the right positions. That level of empathy drives me to move quickly across the process – jumping onto an intake call, running through recent conversations to see if there are any immediately ‘right’ candidates, proactively sourcing talent across multiple platforms, and being timely in scheduling and feedback. I will earn the hiring manager's trust by active listening to quickly understand an opening; by being flexible and available for their calls; by following through on any action items outlined; and by reassuring them that I’m here for them! I feel most successful when I know we’ve done the right thing for the client.”
A: “I love getting to meet talented individuals and hearing their stories and learning what they want out of their careers – and then getting to help make that happen! It’s a privilege to assist in their journeys, and I take seriously that we are talking about a person’s livelihood. The same care I take in building relationships of trust with hiring managers, I apply to our Talent Community. My goal is to facilitate transparent, two-way communication. I’m not afraid to tell a candidate when a job isn’t going to help them meet their goals because it frees them up to find the opportunities that are right.”
A: “Honest and open communication matters. Not only is this aligned with Managed Solution’s values and Code of Conduct, it’s truly critical for recruiting and other Staffing Services. A hiring manager needs to be honest and realistic about budgets, the true needs of their team, – and sometimes as an outside entity, I’m able to help them see another side of the coin. Whether that’s advising the client about the right pay scale for a position with a specific region or helping them see that their job description is unrealistic (or describes three different jobs), I really appreciate when hiring managers value this two-way feedback. I think it brings us more credibility as recruiters and ultimately helps clients fill their needs.
I think it’s also important for a hiring manager to understand that my role as a recruiter is to help sell the value of an organization or position to candidates. The time we invest up front in an intake call positions me to effectively communicate with potential candidates about the roles, and to proactively answer the questions they have. We’ll both spend more time talking to the right people if a hiring manager spends the time with me up front to help me learn how their team functions, what types of soft skills help someone thrive, and what perks/benefits exist within their organizations. I’ll definitely do the right homework on my side to read the job description, the company website, and more before that meeting, but there’s nothing like learning straight from the hiring manager how the team is doing and what it needs.”
A: “My hope is that we can continue building trust with our clients, as we succeed in connecting them with qualified talent. I know I’ve done my job when a client comes back for help with another opening or refers us to their colleague for assistance on a role. Continuing to help good people find fulfilling work with amazing organizations – that’s what it’s all about!”
Ready to hand over the heavy lifting to us? Email us about our Staffing Services today!
By Michael Orellana
Microsoft’s Power Platform is a collection of Microsoft cloud services that make building end-to-end business solutions that would otherwise require extensive software engineering skills, code-less and interactive. The components that currently make up the Power Platform are: Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents. All work independently of one another to improve business processes, but can seamlessly integrate to create scalable business solutions with little to no prior coding knowledge. With Microsoft’s many data sources within Microsoft 365, building solutions around your already existing data has been greatly simplified and puts the power of innovation and automation into the hands of all your users.
Let’s break down the core parts of the Power Platform and their functions.
Your hub for creating business class applications that can work in a web browser or on mobile devices. Power Apps graphical interface allows you to drag and drop your ideas into a professional looking business app that connects to all your major data points within the Microsoft Dataverse.
Creating meaningful and digestible visual representations of your data is no small task and demands a lot of time to get right. With Power BI, Microsoft has compiled the complexities of data analytics into an app that saves you time with intelligent reporting tools that analyze your data and automatically create relationships and visual tools that seamlessly integrate to help create powerful reports. Power BI allows you to upload existing data from spreadsheets, connect to databases and leverage existing Microsoft data points to curate comprehensive dashboards and reports to better analyze your data.
Put the power of automation in the hands of users. Not too long ago, spending time to make repetitive business workflows more efficient required some coding knowledge and the ability to manufacture a way to deliver that solution to the users who need it. With Power Automate, you can build a solution to your time-consuming, monotonous tasks with a simple, drag-and-drop user interface and share that solution amongst your organization with a simple email. With many of the same data connectors leveraged by the rest of the Power Platform, Power Automate can automatically accomplish tasks for you by actions triggered within other services such as SharePoint.
Communicating effectively and efficiently with your customers is going to remain a critical point of any customer facing workflow. Power Virtual Agents aims to help you generate the additional help you need at the front lines to open another avenue of support for your customers. With no coding involved, you can create chatbots that help interface with your customers, and based on your set of conditions and customer responses, build additional automation behind the scenes. This allows you to use the other components of the Power Platform to create your very own custom support solution.
This is a great question. If you have gotten this far, you have likely come up with a couple ideas you could leverage this platform for, but remain skeptical of its ease of implementation. You are right to raise an eyebrow as there is no perfect solution for every problem, but Microsoft is aiming to bridge the gap between automation and the non-technical user. The Power Platform is a robust solution and continues to mature, making its use cases easier and easier. While having a little bit of coding knowledge wouldn’t hurt, you can definitely build a solution without having a coding skillset at all. Have an in-house IT department or development team and you want to pair them up with the flexibility of the Power Platform? Microsoft has built a robust set of extensibility tools to help your technical team develop within the Power Platform, leveraging their advanced skillset to create even more complex solutions.
As with all services in Office 365, you will need a license subscription to access these services. Luckily Microsoft offers free trials of all the apps for you to test before you jump all in. Most Microsoft 365 SKUs will come with a free version of Power Automate and Power BI and you can locate these in your Office 365 app list. For Power Apps and Power Virtual Agents, will require that you seek out the trial offerings.
From there, all that is left to do is assign the licensing to your users and let them explore and get creative. There are plenty of templates for your users to get started along with a generous set of documentation and training material provided by Microsoft.
As mentioned earlier, there is a wealth of information out there and all of this can quickly become overwhelming. Power Automate in our opinion, offers the smallest barrier to entry and this is because of the interface. It’s no fuss and uncluttered interface provides familiarity with the drag-and-drop architecture already baked into the other components of the platform. Additionally, Power Automate offers many templates to get you started. By searching through the template gallery, you may find that the scaffolding of a solution has already been put in place by Microsoft... all you need to do is enter your information and test it out.
If you are wanting to build your own solution there are a couple pieces of anatomy that you will want to understand before diving in.
At the beginning of your adventure into the Power Platform, keep it simple. It's very easy to find yourself in a hole while trying to create a solution to the most complex issue in your organization. This headspace can often lead you down a complex rabbit hole of information. Learn gradually and develop solutions that have minimal steps to ensure you are retaining the core concepts of how the service works.
Skype for Business will be sunsetting on July 31, 2021. Have no fear though, as Microsoft Teams will replace it for all your communication needs and empower you to do even more.
What's Teams? Microsoft Teams is a unified communication and collaboration platform that combines instant messaging, calling, meetings, file sharing, app integration and everything you essentially need to collaborate with your team, no matter where you all are.
If you are a current Skype user, the below still applies and will until it's expired. However, new users that wish to sign up for Skype for Business will be redirected to Teams.
Whether you're new to Microsoft or have been a long time user of Skype, you should be very excited about the transition to Microsoft Teams. Skype is very limited in its capabilities - sure you can chat, make calls and have meetings, but the functionality ends there. Microsoft Teams does all of that and more. Here are some awesome features of Microsoft Teams:
On top of all these great features, you can organize and sort them by different "teams" - clever, right? For example, you can have a "Marketing" Team within Teams that the marketing and sales team to access collateral. You can also have an "All Staff" Team in which everyone in the company has access to. Additionally, you could have an "Executive" team where only the leadership team has access. With these different permissions, you can restrict and control which employees have access to what and keep communication and collaboration organized.
If you found this article interesting, you might want to check out some of our information on Microsoft Teams. Learn more about Microsoft Teams here.
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