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We hear about burnouts in IT everywhere and at the Help Desk, more and more techs are complaining about overtime and being overworked. This article addresses the working environment within one of the most demanding areas in IT and how to help the staff from burnout and fustration.
Working on the Help Desk is different than anywhere else in the IT department. For one, requests that come from the company’s switchboard is usually from an irate customer who cannot sign on, have no internet access or have a received an ugly message booting up their machine. We have to remember that most of the time, the customer did not do anything wrong to have caused the problem.
Service requests from desktop customers demand the highest priority because they need their request fixed immediately. There’s no waiting on their part. The tech needs to hit the ground running, no time to get a coffee and think about it. Unlike the development team or the data architecture team, Help Desk is considered to be front line and needs to serve the customer right away. It is reactive work rather than passive.
There is no changing the landscape but there are opportunities to improve the maintenance of it. Here are some recommendations to improve the working conditions and to safeguard burnout and reduce fustration.
1. Ensure there is an operating manual and a complete tech buy-in: An operating manual for Help Desk is not a compilation of trade secrets or how-to fix the network, but outlines the service levels, customer expectations and boundaries.
2. Ensure the list of applications and resources are identified in the operating manual. Make sure the list is comprehensive and up to date with the latest applications, tools and products used in the company.
3. Ensure the boundaries are defined and documented. Make sure the team knows where the limits exist are and what to do if a service request is made outside of the boundary.
Of the three recommendations above, #3 is the point most often overlooked by management. Every time there is a roll-out or introduction of a new application, product or tool, there needs a review to be done. Context diagrams can be used to identify impacts on existing applications or resources. Determine what is upstream and downstream of the new application, product and tool. Investigate and find out what can go wrong and who is responsible. This will help define the boundaries and the limitations of Help Desk involvement.
The operating manual is a living document. Update it every time there a customer tries to go beyond the boundaries into uncharted area. Your techs need to know how far a customer can push them and in most cases, they need to know when to say ‘No’.
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