The burnout tax: how MSP owners are addressing work-life balance

For years, the unofficial badge of honor in the MSP world has been availability; you are expected to answer every call, fix every problem, and sleep when you can. The idea of “hustle” was romanticized, and burnout was never an option.

But a growing number of MSP leaders are now calling that model what it is: a liability. Greg Brainerd, Owner of Braintek, and Harold Mann, President of Mann Consulting, have navigated the shift from survival mode to sustainable operations that is happening across the industry. The conversation is no longer just about wellness but about quality service, employee retention and growth.

The always-on origins story

When starting a business, especially if you start off alone looking for any and every client, boundaries feel reserved for someone more established.

“When you start out as a one-person business, there is rarely a sense of ‘hours,’” Mann admits. “You’re just so excited to have people hire you that you are reachable and work whenever. The idea of setting boundaries with clients doesn’t come until you have employees.”

Brainerd remembers working all the time, at all hours, when he started. It was an “anything for a buck” kind of job. One day he got a customer call at 10 p.m. and went straight to work. That is how “always-on” becomes his default operating mode.

“I’m not sure I was even billing for overtime back then,” he recalled. “My wife scolded me for taking the call and suggested that I don’t do that anymore.”

The true cost of burnout

The ripple effects of always-on culture doesn’t stay contained to the owner when the business grows. It moves through the team, into the client experience and eventually onto the balance sheet.

There are signs of employee burnout long before it starts making significant impacts on daily operations. Mann says it shows up in service delivery as missed SLAs and terse ticket replies. Brainerd notices it through slower staff response times, and in conflicts or questionable attitudes between employees or towards clients.

The cost of burnout often goes beyond service quality and delivery. It also hits MSP businesses hard when it comes to employee retention. Brainerd admits his business lost good people during a growth phase.

“Due to a lack of internal processes and procedures, everyone was still using tribal knowledge, not documenting, winging it,” he said. “We’ve made major strides to try and pin those problems down. Improving that has helped quite a bit.”

Hiring is harder when candidates sense burnout culture and instability. There are also parts of the job that are inherently more stressful, such as working at a helpdesk. Brainerd makes sure to now set expectations upfront with new hires, including their strategies to avoid workplace exhaustion, such as rotating on-call schedules and defined response time windows.

The fixes that work

Avoiding employee fatigue isn’t achievable with a single fix. It happens through a series of operational moves that changed the underlying issues.

For example, Brainerd adjusted his pricing to help address the increasing amount of after-hour calls. When an employee mentioned that the amount was becoming unsustainable, he started charging a $250 per hour fee.

“Almost overnight 80 – 90% of the calls stopped because they can wait until business hours,” he said. “For the calls that are actually critical, the fee pays for the technician’s overtime.”

Mann took a different approach to minimizing after-hour demands on his team. First, he ensured clients always have enough redundancy to keep working if a specific device fails. For example, a presentation can be given using a phone or tablet if a laptop goes down.

With his team spread across six time zones, Mann also handles off-hour needs differently than MSPs based in one central location. Beyond implementing off-hour pricing, this distributed geographical setup lets him spread coverage across a larger area without over burdening any single person.

“We respect our employees’ local time zones, as well as family and personal time,” he said. “It’s the only way to grow your business and keep your people.”

Another strategy that has worked for Mann is his “I don’t like this” communication style. This means his staff is encouraged to speak up if something isn’t working, whether it’s a client, coworker or policy. This addresses the concern and demoralization that occurs when staff feel that things aren’t going to change for the better.

“Quiet is often worse than actively complaining,” he said. “We take work-life balance very seriously.”

Brainerd manages burnout by ensuring that his staff don’t feel like they are fighting fires all the time. Instead, he makes sure his staff are trained to fix the root cause of issues, so they don’t keep popping back up. They are also proactive in replacing equipment and updating software. All of this keeps emergencies at bay and puts less stress on staff.

“Business should not be on fire all of the time,” he advises. “If you are constantly putting out fires, day in and day out, you are managing technology wrong.”

The business case for balance

An exhausted team produces lower-quality work, loses clients, and drives away the talent needed to grow. The MSP that runs hot indefinitely doesn’t scale; it stalls, then breaks. But the answer isn’t just “work harder,” finding the balance.

“I tell my leadership team that I do not need them working constantly, nor do I want them to,” Brainerd said. “They need time off to re-charge and have a life outside of work and IT. They need that to grow themselves.”

There is a way to be busy enough to achieve business goals while also giving staff room to breathe. According to Mann, there are worse problems to have than hiring more people and raising your rates to find that balance. Plus, actively championing complaints into process improvement and innovation benefits business across the board.

“It’s way more meaningful to me than revenue or fancy client logos,” says Mann. “It creates a durable, sustainable business that attracts not only clients, but future employees.”

In the MSP industry, IT people are notorious for not taking good care of themselves when it comes to work. So be careful to avoid falling into the trap of trying to do it all or putting the customer before your staff. Leave that in the past.

The MSPs that are achieving their goals are the ones who protect their team’s capacity and time while still growing.

Learn how others are taking care of their own work-life balance. Read How MSP leaders unplug and make businesses stronger.