Working remotely isn't as simple as letting employees pick up their laptops and go home, and it's often something that gets overlooked until the job is done. Distance is required. The Covid-19 crisis put enormous pressure on companies and caused a dramatic change in the way they work almost overnight. Some problems are easy to counter when it comes to working from home (WFH). For example, employees must have access to appropriate equipment and devices, a well-designed work environment, good broadband speeds, and the ability to connect securely and reliably to their corporate network in order to access the documents and applications they need. to do their job. We may now be over the first hurdle, with employees now effectively at the WFH, but no one knows what the next shutdown will bring or how long it will last. Despite this uncertainty, companies must do everything in their power to keep their remote workforce productive and efficient while away from their desks.
The problem with remote work
Employees will always have IT support requirements that, while in the office, can be easily met. However, when all staff are at home (often including the IT team), additional challenges can arise. This can lead to an extension of normal IT support processes that are ineffective and unable to meet everyone's needs as they struggle to cope with both routine and unpredictable demands. To meet these demands, service desk analysts will have to rely on their IT service management (ITSM) platform more than ever. By utilizing the added assistance of automation and ensuring that your best practices and support strategy are on par, your staff can effectively manage their workload and keep users satisfied while this uncertainty prevails.
dealing with the unexpected
Automation can provide a helping hand in times of high pressure for IT support teams. When this innovative technology is combined with a transparent ITSM solution, service requests can be resolved quickly and accurately, often before they reach the analyst's office. The effectiveness of remote IT support can be maximized with an intuitive knowledge management system. This can entice users to help themselves by providing suggestions when raising a ticket, so they can diagnose and resolve their issue without even logging the ticket, thus ensuring that issues with simple fixes don't clutter up the ticket queue. This is an ideal solution for certain requests (such as password resets) as users can be guided through a set of steps that will allow them to resolve it independently by taking a standard password reset workflow and application of automation. Taking a “shift to the left” approach, which brings a resolution much closer to the end user and allows them to self-service with automated technology, will reduce the need to escalate incidents and relieve some of the workload on IT staff. This will maintain user satisfaction and therefore productivity, and reduce the time and resources spent resolving incidents. Enabling self-service is particularly important in today's circumstances because not only are employees out of the office, making communication difficult, but many will have family commitments (such as children or elderly parents). occupy) that require them to work outside normal office hours. Implementing solutions that allow 24/7 access to IT support is crucial. In light of this, it is also important to consider other ways for employees to access this support, such as with automated voice solutions. Automated phone systems can allow users to submit, access, and update their tickets over the phone at any time, even if the remote Internet connection is difficult. It also improves the work of IT staff by helping them manage incoming calls without increasing wait times or abandon rates.
Maintain best practices.
Using automated solutions is a great way to help both employees and service desk staff in times of high pressure, but IT teams still can't afford to abandon ITSM best practices. It is essential to treat users as customers in an effort to resolve issues quickly and keep them up to date. This can be facilitated by ensuring that announcements, such as system crashes or services not being available, are delivered to users as soon as possible to keep them informed. Maintaining a comprehensive and up-to-date service catalog has never been more important, as the service desk team has moved to working remotely and for users, and some of the services they provide may have changed as a result. Ideally, the service catalog should be the same as in the office, but when this is not possible, it should always be clear to the user what they can request and how. It is also important that it is available for mobile devices so that users can easily access it from anywhere and at any time. It has never been more important to take a proactive approach and ensure IT support services are transparent before productivity hits as businesses and their workforce face unforeseen challenges. Implementing automation, self-service, and adherence to ITSM best practices will help maximize user productivity and take some of the daily pressure off IT support staff. This will allow them to better manage external issues that may arise during these difficult times. David Shepherd is Regional Vice President of Pre-Sales at Ivanti