Wes SpencerCo-Founder, Empath · Co-Founder of Empath | Recovering Cybersecurity Guy| Keynote Speaker | 2020 Cyber Educator of the Year | Building the MSP Workforce Operating System

Techs stuck at Tier 1.5? Here’s How to Fix It Fast

25 Jul 2025 · 1 min

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In this brief segment, the speaker highlights a common issue in technical teams: employees lingering at a "Tier 1.5" competency level far longer than expected. Using a rhetorical question and a light‑hearted poll, he underscores how pervasive the problem is. He then introduces Empath, a platform designed to streamline onboarding and upskilling pathways, enabling even non‑technical hires—illustrated by the example of a former Starbucks barista—to become productive team members more quickly. The core message is that Empath can accelerate skill acquisition and eliminate the bottleneck of Tier 1.5 stagnation.

Anybody got somebody on your team who's stuck at Tier 1.5 and they've been there way too long? All right, 4 people are honest and the rest of you are lying. Get it, get it. We all— somebody's— a picture came into everybody's head when I said that, right? We all know that kid. Empath is designed around the ability to make it easy for us to build out these pathways and make sure that when you hire that kid from Starbucks next week, You can make the barista a functional member of your team just a little bit faster. That's what we do.