Assumption College

1
Assumption College

• Small Liberal Arts School
• Private Catholic College
• Residential Area of Worcester, MA
• Almost 2200 Undergraduates
• 800 Continuing Education and Graduate
• Close Community Environment

2
Our Helpdesk - the HUB

• Up to 4 lines can ring before voicemail
• 6 stations (4 employee and 2 student)
• 2 full-time and 2 part-time employees
• (includes the manager)
• Goal we are staffed 150
• Supplement staff from User Services when
  vacation, sick or high volumes occur. In all of
  user services job descriptions.
• Bad basement of the IT Center - hard for people
  to find bad for image

3
Our Helpdesk - the HUB

• Hours Monday - Thursday
• 815am - 730pm
• Staff from 800am - 800pm
• Friday 815am - 430pm
• Covers the start of evening classes (which we
  never had before)
• Take all classroom emergency calls
• Use FrontRange HEAT tracking software

4
Have we always had students work our helpdesk?

• Yes, but not always successfully.
• We had students who would staffing the desk
  without an employee present. We had good and bad
  results. We had many dropped calls.
• We had real problems with consistency.
• We had times that unexpectedly the phone was
  un-staffed.

5
How did we improve?

• We combined our student helpdesk with our
  faculty, staff ,administration helpdesk.
  Combined employees to cover more hours and always
  have employee present.
• We started training all our students instead of
  just the RCCs.
• We always have an employee. On-the-job-training
  happens every day. There is always an escalation
  point.

6
How many students work for IT?

• Help Desk / Lab Support - 25-30
• Resnet Consultants (RCC) - 10
• Special Student Workers - 2-5
• Desktop Support Workers 1-3
• Web Support - 1

7
Job Description for Student Workers

• Hub/Lab/Classroom Support - answer phones, go out
  on calls as directed by staff, check printers in
  labs, document any problems, check lab machines.
• RCC's - work on student computers connecting to
  network, assist students in keeping PC's clean of
  viruses spyware, troubleshoot problems, go out
  on calls as directed, assist HUB as needed.
• No job description for hardware techs.
• Student Handbook given out at training.

8
Compensation for our student workers

• At Assumption, all students are paid the same.
  Minimum wage. There is no tiered pay structure.
  
• The only advantage we have with attracting
  workers is that we can interview and hire about
  20-25 of our workers through funds other than
  financial aid.

9
Perks for our student workers

• Training - they get to move in early to campus
• Feeding them
• Shirts
• Memory Sticks
• Dell Certification
• Always looking for ideas

10
Performance and Reviews

• Informal (verbal) review at end of spring
  semester.
• Build relationship with student throughout the
  year.
• Time clock application for hours worked.
• Must call in if you are not coming to work or
  considered an unexcused absence.
• 3 unexcused absences you may be fired.

11
Tangible Benefits

• We capitalized on having highly skilled student
  workers in Resnet and have that same group cover
  the evening start of classes. Our best workers -
  trained and working when only one employee is
  scheduled.
• Sometimes (holidays and sick) they cover the HUB
  by themselves. Always an leader or two in this
  group.
• Able to order parts direct from Dell
• Give a high level of service to our students

12
Tangible Benefits

• We talk about our best students and who is ripe
  for grooming. We send out these special
  workers on calls and give them more
  responsibility.
• We feed them much more often.
• We promote them to other positions in the
  department - learning new skills. Desktop
  support Web support are examples of the
  promotions.

13
Small is Beautiful