The Value of Corporate Boot Camp

Sometimes companies hit the jackpot when it comes to finding employees with an incredible knowledge base who naturally fall into a synchronized rhythm that’s so connected, it’s like magic. Most of the time, though, a company whose employees function well as a team has a secret sauce that allows people to deliver that level of service that impresses customers time and time again.

Plenty of businesses work on regular training and continuing education courses, and so does TSP. However, TSP takes education one step further with something we like to call Boot Camp.

Boot Camp is a series of courses we handcrafted on our own, and many new employees go through Boot Camp whether they’re recent graduates, military veterans, or seasoned engineers with years of field experience. Boot Camp ensures that everyone has the same level of technical training, but it’s also a series of workshops on customer service.

TSP always hires the most qualified people, but we don’t limit our applicant pool to people with “X” years of experience. We also like to hire people just out of college with computer science or technical degrees as well as people with military backgrounds. In our opinion, anyone with technical talent can learn the physical tech of daily operations and fixes, and our engineers are always there to help one another pick up new tricks and skills so the entire team succeeds.

Boot Camp gets everyone on the same page in terms of nuts and bolts with a week of theory and technology training, but we also devote plenty of time to the vital soft skills that will make or break a customer relationship. After a week of TSP Boot Camp, engineers head to the field to work side by side with a TSP senior engineer and mentor. They shadow until they’re comfortable, then work on their own with their mentor keeping an eye on them and ready to help with any issues. After that, new employees come back to headquarters for yet another week of Boot Camp that focuses on customer service training and soft skills.

Another value-add of TSP Boot Camp is the camaraderie built among our engineers – creating an instrumental, long-term peer network. It would be more cost-effective and entirely possible to conduct the Boot Camp virtually, but the face-to-face bonding is priceless. These connections prove integral for our engineers, who post Boot Camp, enjoy a network of resources they can call on when they run into things in the field they have never seen before. As we mentioned in a recent press release, our Boot Camp grads have even referred each other for open positions, creating a culture of mutual respect and support. As the old saying goes, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and as a supportive group of Boot Camp grads, our engineers are better positioned to serve our customers.

Being a successful service engineer in any tech business isn’t just about how well you know the ins and outs of the software and hardware, it’s about whether you know how to be kind to people and solve problems for them. Technical skills are vital, but so are the interpersonal skills that can dramatically affect the customer’s perspective of how well an issue is handled.

Training new employees is one thing, but TSP is proud to take our onboarding process to the next level with Boot Camp, which also helps new employees bond with one another, get to know senior engineer mentors, and introduce themselves to the clients without the pressure of feeling that an account’s success rests entirely on them. Boot Camp is a big part of what makes TSP unique and sets every engineer up to succeed, and it’s kept our company culture strong from the very beginning.