MSP Summit Keynote: What It Takes to Build the Workforce of Tomorrow

CHANNEL PARTNERS CONFERENCE & EXPO/MSP SUMMIT — Building the workforce of tomorrow means everyone can rise to any challenge, and each team member is empowered to be a leader today and in the future.

That was the message of an MSP Summit keynote on Monday titled “Rethinking the Workforce of Tomorrow.” The MSP Summit is part of this week’s Channel Partners Conference and Expo.

Ron Lovern (pictured above, left), executive vice president of Triton Networks, moderated the panel discussion.

Panelists included:

A View of the Workforce of Tomorrow

Jenner said this is the first time there have been five generations in the workforce.

Younger workers view work as an extension of their lives instead of a separate component, she said.

“So it’s being able to understand how they’re going to approach life differently with their work in mind,” Jenner said. “Most of this really comes together in terms of the way that they approach work, the way that they problem solve, and the way that they need different support levels from their leadership. So when we start to look at how generations want to work together, we have to look at this as leaders to say what are the ways that we can help them bring their best work and then also help nurture them to stay with the organization.”

Sorrentino said today’s workforce breaks down into two communities. That includes the frontline worker and the knowledge worker.

“While they do have differences, their needs are coming together,” he said. “The frontline worker normally was somehow disconnected from the company, working maybe nowhere near the company providing that service and not needing that much. Knowledge workers were using applications. They were using technology. Yes, they were communicating over phones to clients, but they were connected to the company and they were different. They collaborate differently than the person who’s actually delivering those resources. But today we have to look at both of them together. I’m a frontline worker, yes; I’m out in the field, but I want the collaboration. I want the connectivity that maybe pre-pandemic frontline workers didn’t require or ask for. So I think today there are two separate groups. They work completely differently, but their needs are finally starting to mesh together. And so companies have to struggle with not only the different generations of workers, but these two types of workers demanding the same thing.”

Making Sure Employees Can Be Successful

AT&T‘s focus is on making sure any new and existing employees have the skill set they need to be successful in Miller said.

“So we do that through our business development programs, our leadership development programs,” he said. “We do that through continuous learning, and then we do that through some top talent development as well. But we’ve had historically a really great portfolio of leadership development programs. We had some for undergrads, for graduate students and people who make careers. But we really evolved that recently and we’ve gone to more business unit-specific development programs. So you’re seeing new ones, like there’s a new finance one, and there’s a new marketing development program. So that would be a two-year rotation. But I think this has allowed people to make an easier transition into where they’re actually going to have full-time employment. They’re already meeting that leadership. They’re already able to network with their peers and learn the exact skill set that they need to be successful in that role rather than being more of a generalist. They’re being more of a specialist.”

TD Synnex has developed some key programs to help MSPs, VARs and agents in the development and certification of their employees, Onyebuchi said.

“I think traditionally distribution has been a backstop for a lot of things,” he said. “Early on, it was a backstop for your logistics and getting things shipped out. Then it became our real big value was we’re going to help you on the marketing side when you didn’t have enough resources. We’ve kind of since shifted from that to also that …

… enablement and learning piece as well. So that learning piece and being able to get our MSPs, our partners and our VARs ready to sell has really been the differentiator for us moving forward, specifically at TD Synnex.

“Originally it was about the ecosystem, making sure that each and every one of you had a chance to collaborate and get an equal spot at the table,” Onyebuchi continues. “But now we’ve really moved into understanding that it’s not just about making you a generalist … but how do I move from being just the person who is memorizing a bunch of IP tables into the person who can build a connection with the person on the other side of the table, and really be focused on selling and solutions. So it’s kind of moving with technology into making us more critical thinkers even in the partner space.”

A New Way to Work

To build the workforce of tomorrow, organizations have to teach the their employees about a new way to work, Sorrentino said.

“When I travel all over the world, I find that other school systems, they teach the students how to learn and then they teach them subjects,” he said. “Well, I came up in the U.S. school system and no one taught me how to take notes. So wouldn’t it be great if we can teach people how to work together, how to collaborate and communicate as a modern workforce? Because that’s what they’re lacking. They know how to make the widgets. They know how to do the financial reports. But what they don’t know how to do is communicate and collaborate.”

When it comes to retaining talent, two things come to mind, Jenner said. The first one is being able to understand how problem solving has started to change in the workforce.

“Before, it used to be you have to do all this research, create a giant net result and present it,” she said. “Well, now that generative artificial intelligence (AI) has come into the workforce and ChatGPT has entered the conversation, we’re starting to see a lot of different things show up now where work is actually starting to go faster. People are starting to have more room in their life to be able to have their research done for them and then be able to now be that creative person. What is interesting here is as an organization, you have to be able to understand where technology is starting to move. And where you can meet technology in the center.”

AI Won’t Replace People

People worry that AI is going to take their jobs, Jenner said. In truth, the people who understand technology and know how to use it will take the jobs.

“This then dovetails in my trend No 2, which is cultivating a learning mindset,” she said. As an organization, it’s all about vocation, but it’s also about training and making sure that your folks can know what’s coming into the future.”

It’s OK to experiment, Sorrentino said. It’s OK to succeed and it’s OK to fail.

“But let’s just change the way we work and make it so that it’s more robust for everyone and that people are learning,” he said.