“My organization is moving fast on AI and Cloud initiatives, implementing new applications, updating outdated versions of software and continuing to keep legacy programs active in the environment. How can my team keep up?”
I can relate to this question because I’ve been in the Managed Service Provider (MSP) world for more than 15 years. Speed, consistency, and efficiency were at the top of my focus when leading a large Service Desk team between 30 and 40 different environments.
Recently, I needed to figure out the best way to set our Service Desk teammates up for success. Here’s a look at what we did:
Create a training program
First, create a Standard Training Program. Some of the most generic and consistent areas that could be translated into our field are:
- Account Unlocks / Password Resets
- Connectivity
- Browser
- Hardware/Peripherals
- Mobility
- Remote Access
- Software Triage
Standardizing these seven areas with training programs allowed our teammates to have the skillset to handle new support items coming into the environments they supported. Some of the training programs ranged from two to three hours’ worth of training while others may range from four to six hours.
The context included live trainers, recordings, external resources like CBT Nuggets/Coursera/YouTube, shadowing/reverse shadowing and quizzes/tests. Here’s a look at how we did the “accounts unlocks/password resets” training program:
- Create a presentation that includes the best practices around account unlocks and password resets.
- Provide living and breathing password reset policies.
- Provide living and breathing verification procedures.
- Insert past live calls where there were successes and failures.
- Perform mock calls with the trainee.
- Review key steps to take when the verification process is NOT successful.
- Schedule reverse shadowing for the trainee to see others handle account unlocks / password resets.
- Conduct live test calls with teams to provide them for social engineers.
- Continuing to update practices to tighten security protocols.
Provide time to learn
According to a June 2024 Gartner survey of 330 business leaders, 93% agreed that their role is to ensure their workforce has the time and resources to continuously learn. That’s why I make sure I include an hour a day for my team members to take preassigned learning courses, a career development course or an annual certification training course.
Encourage new skills
What we are seeing is a year of skilling, especially in AI. Here’s an example of the mix of training we offer to our employees:
But it’s not all about AI. You need to think about how to incorporate other skills that help staff improve their overall delivery of products/services. Here are a few training courses to explore:
- HDI Experience Practitioner
- XM Institute Experience Management Professional (XMP) Certification
- APMG International Experience Foundation
- XLA Institute XM and XLA® Foundation
- Nexthink Digital Employee Experience (DEX) Management Certification
I know things are changing fast. But your commitment to learning and developing your team can remain steadfast.