Can outsourcing IT help counter ‘The Great Resignation’?

Read time 5 mins

It’s safe to say that recent years have proved challenging for many of us, in matters pertaining to both business and personal life. Whilst researchers will require much more time to fully understand the long-term effects of COVID-19 on human anatomy, we have all witnessed its more immediate effects on our ourselves and on our working lives.  

For instance, we have heard many reports of people suffering from ‘long-COVID’, a term used to describe the effects of COVID-19 that continue for weeks or even months beyond the initial illness. Additionally, during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 there were also reports of people undergoing ‘pandemic fatigue’, a state of emotional burnout brought on by living in a perpetual state of emergency.  

Whilst it’s arguable whether either of these conditions directly impacted the (now abruptly shrinking) economy, it is clear that – for businesses and other types of organisations – a new phenomenon has now taken hold.  

Seemingly counterintuitive, since a lot of businesses unfortunately didn’t survive the lockdowns leaving high unemployment rates, employers have reported significant employment losses since 2020; a happening the media have dubbed ‘The Great Resignation’.

 

The Great Resignation 

With many employees choosing to resign from their jobs voluntarily, and at historic rates, The Great Resignation (also known as ‘The Big Quit’ across the pond) means that business leaders are currently experiencing a skills-shortage unlike nothing before. 

A survey compiled earlier this year revealed that almost a third of UK workers (29%) are considering moving to a new job, with IT and Telecoms staff at a staggering 42% likely to move to pastures new.  

Early understandings maintain no specific reason for this trend, although the primary cause appears to be the demand for hybrid working and a reluctance to return to the office-based work environment full time – especially since, during lockdowns, productivity appeared to remain the same or higher for most people – and a desire to maintain a better, more flexible, work-life balance. 

Of course, the effect of The Great Resignation upon UK organisations is monumental, with many struggling to meet their business commitments and the lack of skilled workers now actually slowing productivity, innovation, and growth.  

In such a scenario, it makes sense to turn to a viable solution: outsourcing. 

IT Outsourcing Services 

Whilst Managed Service Providers (MSPs) aren’t entirely immune to The Great Resignation themselves, it does make sense that, as more organisations choose to leave the traditional office-life behind, outsourcing services like IT to MSPs has become more commonplace.   

MSPs have the ability to attract more skilled experts as they make it a priority to find the right people for the job, often through industry connections and specialist head-hunters/recruiters.  

Additionally, outsourcing allows organisations to enter contracts (e.g. service level agreements) with external third parties, giving them much more ability to pull levers on performance, and in a more objective and compelling way, than compared with internal teams. 

There are various IT services that may be outsourced, including: 

Managed IT Services 

Managed IT services can range from general to specific, depending on the needs of the organisation and the MSP in question. Common services might include the IT service desk, IT systems and infrastructure managementservice integration, monitoring and maintenance of equipment, and network monitoring.  

Cloud Services 

Managed cloud service providers take care of various cloud management functions for organisations, as well as offering cloud consultancy on how best to digitally transform the business into cloud services (e.g. offering advice on design, planning, and cloud vendor selection). 

Cyber Security 

Cyber security is a specialist area, requiring expert security knowledge and a contemporary understanding of the threat landscape. Many organisations choose to outsource their cyber security needs in order to benefit from access to wider skillsets and better tools than are within reach in-house.

The Benefits of Outsourcing IT During ‘The Great Resignation’  

Managed service providers can offer organisations numerous additional benefits to increase resilience, productivity, and efficiency. These include:   

Cost Effectiveness

Hiring a full team to run any IT department in-house means high costs. For example, an in-house IT service desk would require the business to pay full-time salaries and benefits, as well as taking on increased operational costs, for tens of people, at least.  

Additionally, in-house teams that need to upscale quickly are bound to run into candidate shortages, potentially even hiring under-experienced employees due to skills shortages and competitive salaries. Of course, even then, this in-house process can take months to complete and incur considerable recruitment fees in the meantime. 

Training new staff also takes up valuable time and resources, significantly eating into budgets and potential revenue while impacting an organisations’ performance, staff morale, and productivity.   

Working with a MSP allows organisations to control costs effectively, since many offer transparent pricing structures which are agreed upon before business commences. Partnering with a provider in this way means businesses only pay for the IT services they need, when they need them, and resources can be easily scaled up or down when necessary.  

There is also no requirement to pay high set-up fees upfront as is often the case when installing internal infrastructure, support, and personnel. The MSP will handle all the technology integration, transitioning, and support for end users, completely removing the headache of sourcing, managing, training, and retaining staff during difficult recruitment periods. 

Better Quality Service 

Alongside the obvious cost-saving benefits, outsourcing to a Managed Service Provider facilitates a much higher quality end-user experience. 

After all, MSPs already have the experience and expertise from supporting similar organisations in the same sector and can cross-pollinate intelligence from different fields and across a varied customer base. This means that services such as the IT service desk are much more likely to have high first contact resolution and, thus, higher end-user satisfaction.   

By working with an external IT provider, organisations can also utilise services such as multilingual speakers across time zones and around-the-clock support. These services help to create an enhanced user-experience and improve workforce productivity, especially when combined with multiple communication channels (e.g. phone, email, live chat or self service).   

Flexible, Modern Workplaces

The Great Resignation indicates changing expectations from both employers and employees alike. Indeed, in recent years, we have witnessed many organisations make a dramatic shift to more flexible, hybrid, and technologically reliant ways of working in order to compete in the talent market. Some are now even trialling a 4 day working week.

In order to implement these modern, digitally transformed workplaces, then, it stands to reason that organisations increasingly look to partner with outsourced IT service providers. After all, MSPs have experience and expertise in services such as cloud consultancyend-user compute strategies, and the associated advanced cyber security measures.  

Remember, to attract and retain the best employees, workplaces must be able to offer internal systems and processes that are user-friendly as well as digitally efficient. As much as modern workplaces rely on leveraging and protecting data and implementing new, efficient IT infrastructures, they’re also vehicles for future-proofing in the sense that they help to attract skilled hybrid or remote workers. 

 

To see how Littlefish can help you reduce costs, increase service quality, and support your transition to the modern workplace please feel free to contact us through our get in touch button.  

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