The managed service provider (MSP) landscape is moving toward proactive compliance and employee qualification management. As MSPs, you should add recurring employee qualification tracking to your service offerings to increase revenue and improve your clients’ overall satisfaction.
The value of employee qualification tracking services for clients
This service is valuable because it reduces the risks of underqualified personnel at a company. Unqualified staff can cost companies credibility and lead to poor performance and delays. Employees’ qualifications can also become outdated, resulting in decreased productivity, noncompliance and various security vulnerabilities.
Manual tracking has become ineffective in today’s fast-paced compliance environment. Human error creates disorganized documentation, poorly managed certifications and missed renewals. Employee qualification tracking eliminates the need for manual observation and reduces the overall risk of unqualified workers. You can demonstrate this value to your customers, leading to increased revenue as your clients succeed.
How to create a qualification tracking service
To build a qualification-tracking service, follow these steps to maximize its value to you and your clients. Remember to keep your current offerings in mind and find ways to combine this new feature with existing ones.
Identify key industries and certifications
Some of your clients may desire the service more than others, so you should identify highly regulated industries and focus on tracking certifications and qualifications there. For example, the health care, legal and financial sectors require extensive certifications and training to operate. Ensure your service benefits these industries to gain more client participation.
Choose the right technology
These tracking services have many technological capabilities. One feature you should have is automated tracking, which gives clients real-time visibility into their workforce’s qualifications. To automate tracking, you must be able to monitor employees’ certifications, including Occupational Safety and Health Administration and government-mandated requirements. The service should also track training, so clients can see how far their employees have progressed and their performance on knowledge assessments. Another feature enables background checks before companies hire employees.
Some workers may require requalification after a certification lapses. Some tips for requalification include automating qualification cycles to ensure they get recertified before the due date. You can have a feature that notifies employees of upcoming expirations. These technologies help clients keep their staff up to date on current protocols while remaining as efficient as possible.
The benefits of employee qualification tracking
Once you have created a comprehensive employee tracking service focused on certification tracking and other technology, you should market the product to your clients. Package the solution as a recurring service, highlighting its benefits, usability and audit-ready documentation. When striking new deals, keep this feature at the forefront as it is a highly desirable addition.
There are many benefits of employee qualification tracking for the MSP and the client. Ensure you include the client perks in package advertisements.
For the MSP
If clients purchase your employee qualification-tracking solution, you have a new recurring revenue stream. You can add it to existing packages for a discount that pays off or sell it as a separate add-on for interested customers. It also increases client retention. Since a qualification tracker improves the workplace and limits risks, customers will be satisfied and remain with your service longer.
It allows you to target clients in rigid industries, as the service can provide the regulatory maintenance required in those fields. Clients in businesses such as health care and finance are especially lucrative partners. The service differentiates your offerings and strengthens your position in your current business relationships, positioning you as a strategic advisor rather than a technology provider.
For the client
A tracker simplifies compliance by centralizing qualification tracking. It can help clients calculate return on investment by providing a framework for identifying how training directly relates to business outcomes, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of employee training. It reduces the client’s liability by ensuring their employees meet the certification requirements of their respective industry.
The service also enhances security postures. Some programs perform human risk management (HRM), which assess risks based on human behavior and alerts clients when to upskill or reskill an employee. It helps customers with their cyber insurance eligibility as well, providing the training, data backups and secure logins you need to qualify. Employees can also use a password manager to increase password complexity without having to remember them.
If a company undergoes an audit, it can provide the necessary certification and qualification documents up front. Having a more skilled workforce is another benefit, since the service identifies knowledge gaps and shows performance scores. This allows clients to create high-quality training to improve those results.
Employee qualification tracking belongs in your MSP portfolio
You and your clients will benefit from introducing employee qualification tracking to your MSP portfolio. It adds value to your overall service, provides advanced technological capabilities and enhances customer retention. You also expand your market by adding a service that benefits compliance-heavy industries. Consider adding it to your offerings and marketing the feature to new and existing clients.
Photo: MMD Creative / Shutterstock
This post originally appeared on Smarter MSP.