During a Client engagement last year, I undertook a brief study of how IT Service Operations people were performing and the findings led me to create a simple six stage model for helping to maximize their value.
The Slide Deck (at the end of this post) presents an introduction to this model and the key focus areas within each of the six stages.
It attempts to show a lifecycle approach to the specification, selection, hiring, orientation and development of IT Service people. The stages can be easily modified to work in any Organization.
Over the last ten years I have personally found that there’s simply no getting away from the fact that if you want to deliver world class service, then you need to hire people with world class capability AND people who have the near-term potential to become world class players. The retention of highly experienced and skilled Service people, in today’s high demand ITIL labor market, means that besides hard salary for any given role, a number of other retention factors come into play. For example a clear progression path and job enrichment are important to continuously motivate a highly skilled person.
Also, another key finding has been that hiring the right people, with the right skills, at the right cost, at the right time – is also critical to your Service Organization. Oftentimes, the “right cost” may not sound palatable to the budget or the bottom-line – but in the final analysis – you get what you pay for.
When hiring new Service people I not only look for “what can you do immediately for this organization” – but also for their potential ability to identify and implement ‘quick wins’ and service improvements based on their previous experiences. After all, this is important added value that should be expertly extracted from all new starters, whatever their level.
The correct Orientation of new starters into Organizations rarely happens these days. A mixture of poor forward planning, lack of focus and management ‘effort’ into the creation and execution of structured Orientation programmes is apparent in most organizations. Did you know that new employees often rate their new organization by the number of days they had to wait for their Laptop or phone connection to be activated? Then there’s the allocation of passwords, but that’s another story.
An effect Orientation turbo-charges the knowledge in take and awareness of every new starter and it a powerful tool in helping people to ‘gel’ and settle in – in the right way – to their new working environment. I would go so far as to say – that you should not let loose new employees until they have proved to their local manager that they not only understand how things work locally, but they know what to do and who to talk to when things go wrong. Service Recovery – from the outset.
Perhaps the most contentious step of my six stage model is the ‘Probation’ stage. Sounds draconian doesn’t it?
Well, it’s firmly within the overall lifecycle for good reason. Sometimes things don’t work out. Interviewing and selection of new employees is an art not a science. People are only human after all. Occasionally hiring managers make mistakes – or are drooling over a well polished résumé – that glitters – but does not really contain much gold. You can create a period of time (often from 1 month through to 3) to allow yourself the opportunity of a simple handshake goodbye – if the incoming employee doesn’t make the grade. All too often large corporations will ignore poor performance, move somebody into another new role or worse still promote that person into another role – only to pass the problem elsewhere. No, I’m sticking with the probation period, although I’m open to suggestions for a smarter title!
The remaining stages in the model are all about maximizing the value of the employee through moving to – and maintaining – a period of high performance. Unless you are really fortunate – this does not happen by luck. Smart people get bored easily and move (albeit psychologically) onto new things – even if they sit in the same cube/seat. As a leader of your Service Organization you have to work hard to create and foster a culture and environment that sustains high people performance.
Here’s the RUB.
In Service Organizations – you are only as good as your last mistake. FACT. Ask your Customer to recall the last time they received awesome service and they will hesitate for a while before struggling to think of something. Ask them to recall your last mistake and… wham! …straight away the gory details come flooding back to haunt you!
So, when mistakes happen in cultures like these, there’s a lot of pressure for local IT leaders to blame someone. Blame culture means someone’s going to get it in the neck. This de-motivates the individual. This leads to lower than required performance.
The way to break this downward spiral is to provide everyone with a structured way of being “re-educated”. It can be as simple as a talk through the procedure that wasn’t followed correctly, or perhaps a return visit to an online training course. Whatever, there needs to be positive support to prevent mistakes from recurring and this means positive support for individuals. (rant over!)
Look at it another way, at 0300 in the morning when you need an emergency change approving, and you have to rely on someone’s goodwill to support you, will that goodwill be there in someone who got it in the neck recently? Will it be there for someone who received careful re-education and support? I think so.
Download Maximizing-the-value-of-IT-Services-People.ppt
Anyway, I hope you find the 6 stage model thought provoking and useful. Why not leave a comment to offer suggestions for improvement?
Social Bookmarks