3

Service desk structure and resourcing

People are the service desk’s most valuable asset and

studies have shown that there is a huge difference in the
performance between motivated and demotivated staff. “Clients do not come first. Employees come first.
Within high performing service desk teams across all It you take care of your employees, they will take
sectors, it is common to see high levels of discretionary care of the clients.”
effort - in other words, staff who happily take it upon
themselves to go the extra mile for the benefit of the Richard Branson
service. Therefore, it is really important to invest time and
effort in the people that are responsible for service delivery.

Effective people management ensures that your service desk

runs smoothly and efficiently. Ensuring service desk staff feel
valued and appreciated will mean that they are more likely to “It really is true that happy people give great
deliver the excellent customer service we need. service.”

It is important that the service desk has the right people Antonia Jones
doing the right jobs. To make sure this happens it is
essential to have rigorous recruitment, induction and
training procedures in place. Staff who are well managed and given continuous training and evaluation are better able
to do their jobs and deliver excellent service to our customers and users.

3.1 Organisational structures, roles and responsibilities

The key to an effective service desk is ensuring that there is clear accountability and that roles within the service
desk are defined and understood. It can be helpful to provide the service desk with a RACI matrix12 for roles and
responsibilities within the service desk and also the wider department. This will help them understand how the
different roles and teams fit together and understand the structures and reporting lines within the service. This is
essential for effective ownership and escalation. The size of an organisation, how it is structured, the existence of
external partners and other factors will all influence the kind of roles needed on your service desk.

12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assignment_matrix

T H E U K H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N S E R V I C E D E S K T O O L K I T 25
 ITIL – Service Desk roles and responsibilities
The key to an effective Service Desk is ensuring that there is clear accountability and that roles are defined
so as to carry out the practice of Service Operation. A role is often tied to a job description or work group
description, but does not necessarily need to be filled by one individual. The size of an organisation, how
it is structured, the existence of external partners and other factors will influence how roles are assigned.
Whether a particular role is filled by a single individual or shared between two or more, the importance is the
consistency of accountability and execution, along with the interaction with other roles in the organisation.

The following roles are needed for the Service Desk.

Service Desk manager

In large organisations where the Service Desk is of a significant size, a Service Desk manager role may
be justified, with the Service Desk supervisor(s) reporting to him or her. In such cases, this role may take
responsibility for some of the activities listed above, and may additionally perform the following activities:

ƒƒ Manage the overall desk activities, including the supervisors;

ƒƒ Act as a further escalation point for the supervisor(s);

ƒƒ Take on a wider customer service role;

ƒƒ Report to senior managers on any issue that could significantly impact the business;

ƒƒ Attend change advisory board meetings;

ƒƒ Take overall responsibility for incident management and request fulfillment on the Service Desk. This
could also be expanded to any other activity taken on by the Service Desk – e.g. monitoring certain
classes of event.

Note: in all cases, clearly defined job descriptions should be drafted and agreed so that specific
responsibilities are known.

Service Desk supervisor/Senior Service Desk analyst

In small desks it is possible that the Senior Service Desk analyst will also act as the supervisor – but in
larger desks it is likely that a dedicated Service Desk supervisor/Senior Service Desk analyst role will be
needed. Where shift hours dictate, there may be two or more post holders who fulfill the role, usually on an
overlapping basis. The supervisor/senior analyst role is likely to include:

ƒƒ Ensuring that staffing and skill levels are maintained throughout operational hours by managing
shift staffing schedules, etc;

ƒƒ Undertaking HR activities as needed;

ƒƒ Acting as an escalation point where difficult or controversial calls are received;

ƒƒ Producing statistics and management reports;

ƒƒ Representing the Service Desk at meetings;

ƒƒ Arranging staff training and awareness sessions;

ƒƒ Liaising with senior management;

ƒƒ Liaising with change management;

26 T H E U K H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N S E R V I C E D E S K T O O L K I T
 ƒƒ Performing briefings to Service Desk staff on changes or deployments that may affect volumes at the
Service Desk;

ƒƒ Assisting analysts in providing first line support when workloads are high, or where additional
experience is required.

Service Desk analysts

The primary Service Desk analyst role is that of providing first level support through taking calls and
handling the resulting incidents or service requests, using the incident management and request
fulfilment processes, in line with Service Desk objectives.

From the Service Operation section13 of the UCISA ITIL for the HE community Best Practice Guide (2010)14

3.2 Job descriptions

Every person working on the service desk should have a job description that accurately describes the skills, competency
requirements and responsibilities of their role. This means that they must be regularly reviewed and updated to
ensure that they keep up with the changing nature of the service desk. Job descriptions should not just be used for
recruitment but should also form part of the performance and development processes. Ideally job descriptions should
be published in a central repository so that they can be easily located. It is important to work closely with HR to ensure
that the process for reviewing and updating job descriptions aligns with university procedures and policies.

3.3 Resourcing and staffing levels

Different service desks will require different levels of resources to cover not
only the service hours but also the differing demands and service levels.
There are many different ways of forecasting and predicting resourcing
requirements and managing shift patterns and rotas, there are some
software products available but spreadsheets and calendars can also be
useful resourcing tools. lt is recommended that you review data from both
the ITSM tool and telephony systems as this can provide a useful insight into
peak service demands. Resourcing to the right level can be challenging, but is
critical in providing an efficient and effective support function.

Large organisations often make use of a set of workforce management tools in order to effectively match resourcing
requirements with customer demand. The ability to flex up during times of high demand is a challenge for any
organisation, however until you fully understand the usual pattern of activity across your busy and quiet periods, it is
not possible to accurately forecast the impact of any unusual activity, or respond accordingly.

A sound knowledge of your resourcing and scheduling needs, coupled with some service forecasting also facilitates
better strategic decision making. For example, if you are considering making changes to service desk support
channels, and increasing uptake of your self-service portal, understanding user behaviour and workload peaks
and troughs can help you to predict the most likely impact in terms of freeing up or reducing analyst availability.
Forecasting facilitates better decision-making around reducing or redirecting all service desk activity - for example,
in this scenario taking a decision to devote more time to allowing analysts to work on producing knowledge, self-
help or other value-add activities.

13 From the Service Operation section of UCISA (2010) ITIL for the HE community Best Practice Guide www.ucisa.ac.uk/representation/activities/
ITIL/serviceoperation
14 UCISA (2010) ITIL for the HE community Best Practice Guide www.ucisa.ac.uk/publications/itil

T H E U K H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N S E R V I C E D E S K T O O L K I T 27
Figure 1: Example of call trends by month and by year from Lancaster University IT Service Desk

3.3.1 Shift patterns and rotas

Having enough of the right kind of staff on duty is key to shift and rota management and it is worthwhile to spend
time getting your shift patterns and rotas right. Each service desk will have a different set of requirements, needing
varying numbers of staff on different days and times of the week and different skill sets. If you are hiring staff to work
shifts at different times and days of the week you should attempt to set your staff shift patterns in as static a pattern
as possible to attract and retain staff and give consistency to your service.

Rotas should be reviewed regularly to ensure you have adequate staff on duty and you should give clear guidance to
all staff, making clear the person/s responsible for rota changes, any rules around shift swaps and what people should
do in the event someone does not appear for their duty or where there is sickness absence.

Edge Hill University Example Rota

Early (8am - 4pm) Late (10am - 6pm)
Monday IR EC
Tuesday JJ MW
Wednesday EC JJ
Thursday MW IR
Friday EC/JJ/MW* IR

*Friday mornings are rota’d as a separate entity

Note that the ‘Early’ at 8am and the ‘Late’ until 6pm are guaranteed by the above table. All staff work flexi
hours providing they cover their agreed commitment(s)

In vacation times, we finish at 5pm and the ‘late’ rota is not used

In the event of a week (or more) planned leave, cover is arranged by the Customer Service Manager. When
under a week is involved, local ‘swaps’ are arranged.

28 T H E U K H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N S E R V I C E D E S K T O O L K I T
 Manchester Metropolitan University rota
Monday – Friday, 8am – 5pm, excluding bank holidays and holiday closures:

1) Early shift

a. Start: 8am

b. Morning break: 9.30am – 9.45am

c. Lunch break: 11.45am – 12.30pm

d. Afternoon break: 2.30pm – 2.45pm

e. Finish: 3.45pm

2) Middle shift

a. Start: 8.45am

b. Morning break: 10.15am – 10.30am

c. Lunch break: 12.30pm – 1.15pm

d. Afternoon break: 3pm – 3.15pm

e. Finish: 4.30pm

3) Late shift

a. Start: 9.15am

b. Morning break: 10.45am – 11am

c. Lunch break: 1.15pm – 2pm

d. Afternoon break: 3.30pm – 3.45pm

e. Finish: 5pm

There are 3 service desk advisors on each shift and the shifts rotate on a weekly basis.

Correct break times must be adhered to in order to maintain appropriate staffing levels at all times; breaks
outside of scheduled times are allowed on emergency basis only.

4) S
 tudent-only shift operated by specially trained students (IT Rovers), who have full skills and knowledge
to handle incoming queries from students (only). These shifts typically last up to 3 hours a day during
the busiest periods (term time only, one IT Rover per day), to improve our response time and provide
friendly peer-to-peer service specifically designed for students.

All other times

5) Out of hours support handled by the NorMAN Helpline from the University of Northumbria.

T H E U K H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N S E R V I C E D E S K T O O L K I T 29
 Rotas and staffing levels, IT Service Desk University of Leeds
The core IT Service Desk hours during term time are Mon – Fri 08:00 to 21:00 and in order to cover these
opening times the IT Service Desk day team will work alternating shift pattern to cover the core hours as
follows;

Early Shift: 07:45 – 15:45 (1 hour for lunch)

Mid Shift: 09:00 – 17:00 (1 hour for lunch) – shift is specifically for Remote Support function

Late Shift 09:45 – 17:45 (1 hour for lunch)

The Remote and Out Of Hours Team cover the extended hours from 17:45 to 21:00 weekdays and 12:00 –
17:00 on Saturdays and Sundays. Staff working in this team have varying hours and days on a part time basis.

The IT Service Desk will operate will lower staffing levels during summer vacation (mid June until early
September) and during this period core hours are reduced to 08:00 – 17:00. However critical events in the
University calendar such as Confirmation & Clearing will be supported with increased hours where necessary.

Rota and staffing levels, IT Service Desk Leeds Beckett University

Leeds Beckett University IT Service Desk opening hours are 08:30 - 18:00 Monday - Friday.

The team are split across 2 sites and into 2 shifts, early and late all with a 30 minute lunch break;

Early: 08:15-16:15 (Monday - Thursday) 08:15-15:45 (Friday)

Late: 10:15-18:15 (Monday - Thursday) 10:45 - 18:15 (Friday)

The early shift starts 15 minutes before the service opens to allow time to open up and log in to systems
with the late shift finishing 15 minutes after the service closing to allow time to close up and ensure we
are not ushering customers out of the door. Friday working hours are 30 minutes shorter for all staff so
the shifts are staggered accordingly to cover core service hours. In the summer holidays when the number
of incidents and requests subside it can be more useful to reduce service hours to increase staffing within
core hours to undertake proactive work, training and job shadowing.

We also offer a walk in and media equipment loans service and therefore have to have a manned triage
desk at each site. Each analyst is rota’d to do 2 half days a week covering this part of the service.

30 T H E U K H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N S E R V I C E D E S K T O O L K I T
3.3.2 Breaks and lunches
Service desk staff should be encouraged to take a rest break during their shift and these should be provided in
recognition of the busy environment and high workload. Service desk staff should be encouraged to take time out
away from their desks during lunch and break times; this will also ensure that they do not disrupt other colleagues
who are working.

3.4 Student placements: apprenticeships and work experience

Working in the higher education sector we are in a privileged position to have a valuable staffing resource at our
fingertips. With a number of courses now offering industrial placement years the service desk can utilise university
work placement schemes and policies. This kind of work experience brings many benefits to both the student and the
service desk.

The student gains valuable work experience improving their chances of employment when leaving university. For
the service desk you get a member of staff from the user community who can provide a useful insight into student
experience. Other benefits to the service desk include a regular refresh of staff (which can keep the team from
stagnating and improves the team dynamic). It can also be empowering for permanent staff to train new additions to
the team. There is also a fully trained candidate should a permanent position arise once the student has graduated.
For the university, it shows a positive culture of helping and promoting students as well improving the courses
placement statistics (and therefore ability to attract future students).

Some universities also take on short-term school placements, this can foster local community ties and encourage
secondary and high school students to pursue higher education and improve future student recruitment figures.

T H E U K H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N S E R V I C E D E S K T O O L K I T 31