The Helpdesk and Technology Operations Manager plays a pivotal role in the seamless operation of Clarks IT services, overseeing the day-to-day running of the Helpdesk and supporting the broader technology operations. This is a hands-on role, with the manager directly involved in problem-solving, incident management, and ensuring 24x7 operational readiness. With the support of the Head of Technology Operations and Service Delivery, this role will focus on providing excellent IT support services, maintaining a consistent escalation process, and ensuring minimal disruption to business-critical services.
This role will also be responsible for implementing and adhering to ITIL best practices to optimize processes such as incident management, problem management, and change management. Furthermore, it ensures a well-defined process for service continuity during outages and high-severity incidents.
Key Responsibilities:
Helpdesk Management:
- Team Leadership & Development:
- Directly manage the Helpdesk team, providing mentorship, support, and training.
- Conduct regular performance reviews, ensuring that KPIs and service metrics are achieved.
- Develop a talent management plan, identifying skill gaps and planning necessary training or recruitment to meet future operational needs.
Incident & Problem Management:
- Act as the escalation point for complex incidents, ensuring swift resolution and minimizing downtime.
- Ensure that problem management processes are in place, including root cause analysis (RCA) and proactive incident avoidance.
- Oversee the effective use of the ITSM tool (Assyst), ensuring incidents, problems, and requests are properly categorized, prioritized, and resolved in a timely manner.
- Work closely with the Head of Infrastructure and Computing to collaborate on cross-team incident handling where necessary, ensuring clear communication and rapid resolution.
IT Service Desk Operations:
- Establish, review, and continuously improve service level agreements (SLAs) to meet business needs.
- Implement a continuous improvement plan, leveraging data from incidents and service requests to identify areas for operational enhancement.
- Develop detailed reports for senior leadership on helpdesk performance, SLA adherence, incident trends, and recommendations for service improvements.
Customer Service & End-User Support:
- Act as a champion of customer satisfaction within the Helpdesk, ensuring all interactions are handled with a focus on providing excellent service to internal and external users.
- Drive initiatives to enhance end-user satisfaction, including proactive communication during outages or service changes.
Technology Operations and 24x7 Escalation:
Operational Leadership:
- Take ownership of the 24x7 escalation process, ensuring there is robust coverage, clear escalation paths, and rapid response to high-severity incidents.
- Develop, implement, and maintain an on-call rota that ensures seamless escalation management across the technology operations function.
Incident Response & Resolution:
- Ensure critical incidents are addressed immediately, mobilizing appropriate teams to mitigate impact and restore services.
- Lead major incident response and post-incident reviews, driving corrective actions and improvements to processes.
- Create an operational escalation matrix, outlining clear steps for when, how, and to whom incidents should be escalated.
Service Continuity Planning:
- Ensure that business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plans are in place and well-communicated across teams, with regular testing to validate readiness.
- Collaborate with the Infrastructure and Platforms teams to maintain system redundancy and resilience, reducing the potential for downtime.
Collaboration with Infrastructure & Technology Teams:
Coordination with Head of Infrastructure and Computing:
- Collaborate closely with the Head of Infrastructure and Computing to ensure the Helpdesk team is aligned with ongoing infrastructure initiatives, upgrades, and changes.
- Ensure helpdesk team members are familiar with infrastructure projects that may impact support operations, and are prepared to respond to related incidents.
Vendor & Service Provider Management:
- Manage relationships with external vendors and service providers for software, hardware, and third-party support contracts.
- Oversee any external services that are escalated to vendors for resolution, ensuring SLAs are adhered to and issues are promptly resolved.
Monitoring & Reporting:
- Develop comprehensive monitoring tools and dashboards in collaboration with the infrastructure team to ensure end-to-end service visibility.
- Provide regular and ad-hoc reporting on operational performance, including detailed post-incident reports, root cause analyses, and recommendations for improvement.
Change Management:
ITIL Change Management:
- Manage the change control process for all technical environments, ensuring changes are reviewed, approved, and implemented in line with ITIL best practices.
- Collaborate with stakeholders across technology and business teams to ensure changes are communicated and implemented with minimal risk to operations.
- Implement a clear forward schedule of change, reducing the risk of conflicting deployments and improving transparency across teams.
Training and Knowledge Management:
End-User Training:
- Develop and deliver training sessions to end-users on common IT systems, reducing reliance on Helpdesk for repeat incidents.
- Establish a self-service knowledge base that addresses frequently asked questions and troubleshooting guides.
Helpdesk Training:
- Ensure that Helpdesk staff are trained to handle evolving technologies and emerging trends in IT support.
- Foster a learning culture within the team to keep skills up to date, especially regarding new tools, processes, and systems.
Knowledge and Skills
Experience:
- 7+ years of IT support and operations experience, with at least 3-5 years in a management capacity, overseeing a 24x7 helpdesk or operations team.
- Proven experience with ITIL frameworks, particularly around incident, problem, and change management.
- Experience working in a hybrid infrastructure environment, including cloud and on-premise technologies.
- Experience in leading operational readiness for 24x7 environments with robust escalation and incident response processes.
Technical Skills:
- ITSM Tools: Strong expertise in ITSM tools such as Assyst, with a focus on process optimization and automation.
- Service Monitoring: Familiarity with system monitoring tools (e.g., SCOM, SolarWinds) for end-to-end visibility across services.
- Incident Management: Proven experience in managing high-severity incidents, with a track record of minimizing business impact.
- Knowledge of IT infrastructure, including servers, networks, cloud services, and applications. Proficiency in relevant technologies and tools. This includes Microsoft M365, Nutanix, DHCP, and other common EUC and Infra tooling, though the infrastructure and EUC technology stacks are managed by a dedicated team.
Certifications:
- ITIL Foundation (minimum); ITIL Practitioner or Manager certification preferred.
- Relevant technical certifications (e.g., CompTIA A+, Microsoft Certified Professional) are desirable.
