Question: Challenges in optimizing the use of IT helpdesk personnel


I am an IT leader for a health insurance provider. Our the IT helpdesk has recently been consolidated under corporate as a shared service function. We have also migrated to a company wide issue tracking system and repurposed 2 staff members in the last 3-4 months.

Although the system is easy to use, we are having trouble in coaxing our employees to use it. Perceived shortage of staff is leading to frequent escalations, and various departments competing for IT support outside the ticketing system.

This disillusions people who are actually using the ticketing system.

What measures can we put in place to get our employees to use the system, without risking a critical miss in service delivery?

Expert Insight


Ask them.  One of the simplest answers I've found to handle most employee issues is ask them to solve the problem. It has several benefits.
A. they solve the problem
B. they illuminate the nature of their resistance to having a solution in the first place
C. they get to take ownership of any solution/upgrades since it was their solution which is often more palatable than the one imposed by leadership.
D. they get very subtly trained in the approach of not looking to leadership for answers which leaves you, the leader with much more time to address larger vision issues than the getting mired down in day to day pedestrian level of micromanaging.