Apprenticeship summary

The IT Service Desk is the public face of the University’s IT Services department. The Service Desk handles everything from individual technical problems to system outages. They are a single point of contact for our users - helping them to easily find solutions, request help, and contact other IT teams.

The post holder is primarily responsible for learning how to analyse new issues and requests. This includes taking phone calls from users or helping them in-person, as well as online using live chat and our web-based contact form. They are empowered to resolve most queries, and accurately assign more complicated or time-consuming issues to other colleagues.

Team members are expected to contribute individually and within a collaborative working environment. This helps us to deliver excellent customer service and meet our service standards. The post holder should demonstrate the values of the IT Service Desk by maintaining open and honest communication, collaborating with others and being inclusive and approachable.

This apprenticeship would suit:

The apprenticeship would suit an individual with a positive attitude towards the provision of exceptional customer service in a demanding IT environment. They will be a people person, polite, approachable and welcoming, able to talk to customers face to face, over the phone or via electronic medium. They will be confident, able to build strong relationships with team members and customers. They will be hard working, calm under pressure with a strong desire to learn.

Main duties the apprentice will learn:

• Providing first line IT support to staff, students, and visitors, via all the Service Desk’s contact methods.
• Ensuring all contact with users is recorded accurately in the IT Service Management tool.
• Identifying trends within recent and ongoing issues by monitoring incoming incident records and collaborating with colleagues.
• Utilising skills, experience, and documented knowledge to provide solutions to users for the majority of reported issues.
• Accurately triage more complex or time-consuming issues to other support teams, by building a thorough understanding of our services and support teams.
• Developing a broad understanding of the University’s organisational structure, business functions, strategic aims, and key stakeholders to accurately assess the impact of issues.
• Participating in ITIL-based Incident and Problem Management in line with documented processes.
• Updating the IT Services Status Page and social media in response to service outages.
• Occasionally carrying out remote desktop support to resolve minor issues.
• Ensuring that technical solutions are documented within the IT Service Management tool for future reference.
• Being an advocate for our users and escalate whenever IT support is falling below expected levels, to ensure issues are resolved in acceptable timescales and excellent customer service is delivered.
• Contributing to the creation and maintenance of knowledge base articles, ensuring documentation is easy to follow, written in Plain English and tailored to the correct audience.
• Any other duties that may reasonably be required in line with your position within IT Services or to help deliver excellent customer service.
• Supports equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Minimum GCSE grade 4 in English Language and Mathematics (or equivalent level 2 vocational qualifications including demonstrable examples of the required level of literacy and numeracy).
• A commitment to excellent customer service.
• Good oral and written communication with the ability to tailor responses to specific audiences.
• The ability to work effectively as a member of a team towards quality service goals and deadlines.
• The ability to prioritise and schedule workload in the face of conflicting demands.
• A structured and methodical approach to troubleshooting and problem solving.
• A willingness to adopt and champion new ways of working.
• An understanding of the importance of equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
• The ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures
• A basic working knowledge in one of the following (and familiarity with the other):
  1. Microsoft Windows
  2. Mac OS X
• Basic knowledge of mobile devices including tablets and smartphones.
• The ability to maintain an open and approachable demeanour.
• The ability to maintain a high level of accuracy under pressure.

You will be expected to engage fully with the University of Birmingham apprenticeship scheme, attending mandatory group days and contributing to the successful promotion of the scheme by representing your department in a positive manner.

Planning and Organising

Contact points are assigned according to a rota. You will assign and prioritise your own workload and are expected to work in line with documented prioritisation guidelines to ensure issues are resolved within customer expectations.

You will need to maintain an overview of other contact points and the workload of colleagues and react appropriately to changes in demand and refer workload issues to your manager.

Problem Solving and Decision Making

You will use your skills, experience, and documented knowledge, to match solutions to user issues. A basic level of troubleshooting will be learned.

You will be required to assess the impact of issues on the business functions of the University quickly and accurately, and prioritise and escalate issues where required.

Complex issues will be referred to more experienced colleagues or specialist support teams.

You will be able to proactively suggest improvements related to IT Service Desk processes and procedures.

Internal and External Relationships

As the first point of contact for IT Services you will learn to liaise with a wide range of staff, students, and visitors. To help deliver excellent customer service communication will always be open, honest, and tailored to the user’s technical ability.

You will need to build and maintain good relationships with colleagues across IT Services to ensure the timely delivery of solutions to users.

Career Pathway

Technical Support Analyst

Desktop Support Specialist

Team Leader

For enquiries please email: apprenticeships@contacts.bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours [here](https://www.birm