How to keep IT help desk workers busy during the day?

[gmc8757]

I manage 3 people that do mainly helpdesk type work. We get the trouble calls, and they go out and fix the problem. This is great for when the calls come in, but when we don't have too many calls, it's tough to find stuff for them to do. Any ideas of what I can have them do? (I know it's a weird request) They don't have any special talents really..so that makes it harder.

 

[ZappDogg]

tell them to browse anand. that's what i do all day =P

 

[gmc8757]

haha...same here. What an awesome site...you can learn a lot here..that's for sure.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Clean toilets!

 

[gmc8757]

They Definitely won't appreciate that!

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

You're telling us that they're not qualified to do ANYTHING else for the company you work for? Methinks somebody needs to rethink your business plan before the admin folks decide your job could be done cheaper in India.

 

[JackMDS]

You have better chance in this forum.

Many participants are high level IT pro.

 

[gmc8757]

Originally posted by: MagnusTheBrewer
You're telling us that they're not qualified to do ANYTHING else for the company you work for? Methinks somebody needs to rethink your business plan before the admin folks decide your job could be done cheaper in India.

I meant they don't have say like a programming background where they can develop something on their downtime. That's all i meant.

 

[MerlinRML]

Downtime at a help desk? That's one of those things that I thought happened only in fairy tales.

Down time is when you start finding projects for your team to work on. Some things that I think are a good use of time are:
formal training
research into new products/solutions for upcoming projects
looking at areas that are working but could be done better and architecting a real solution instead of the one that was slapped together quickly
revisiting all those good ideas that you haven't had time to implement
performing general maintenance, updates, and upgrades on servers, workstations, etc
cleaning out and organizing the spare parts, junk, inventory rooms
cataloging and updating software licenses and hardware inventory

If these people can't do any of the above, you may need to hire a little higher class of employee or get them some training so that they can handle it. If these people aren't qualified to do anything extra and you have considerable down time, you've got too many employees for the amount of work that you do.

 

[gmc8757]

That's good...I appreciate your response. We don't work at a typical help desk...hard to explain. I will use the list you made up and see what I can come up based off that.

 

[nweaver]

Documentation, the bane of IT everywhere


I'm about 300 years behind in documentation (and here I am, neffing on AT)

 

[gmc8757]

Originally posted by: nweaver
Documentation, the bane of IT everywhere

Yes! great idea. Thanks. Keep em coming if you can!

 

[spidey07]

Implement a change management and project management system.

They'll spend the next 5 years not actually doing anything but trying to hound people for approvlas, but at least it's "in the system".

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Implement a change management and project management system.

They'll spend the next 5 years not actually doing anything but trying to hound people for approvlas, but at least it's "in the system".

"Can I change the Desktop background on my machine?"

"Eh, I can only approve accessing the display properties to change it. Bill can approve the change itself, fill out an MR-91. I'll warn you now, he will require HR buyoff on the new background. They will want their HR-71 filled out, with a printout of the new background. Approval to print non revenue generating materials is approved by Wayne via an IT-47, who will only allow you to print in black in white. HR is going to reject the request because it's black and white, you can then take that back to Wayne, who will then allow a printing in color. You will resubmit it to HR on a new HR-71 app, where they will approve your background and fill out an HR It Release form, which you take to Bill."

"Eh...blue is nice."

 

[spyordie007]

I used to manage a university help desk; training and documentation are the top tasks I'd give to those staffing the help desk (1 FT + ~8 PT).

I found that targeted objectives usually helped to keep them on task. For example, this Q I want you to get A+ certified; or this week I'd like you to produce/update these documents for our KB.

Some other misc. tasks you could assign:
Building training environments (VMs, etc.)
CPE maintenance (i.e. printers)
Updating/bar coding inventory
Anything I had on my task list that I felt could in part/all be delegated
etc.