In any support organization, it is important to develop a clearly defined career path. No matter how flat the organization, this can be achieved successfully. A traditional career path is one that provides the opportunity for an employee to move from position to position taking on new roles and responsibilities with an increase in compensation to match the position. An example of this is depicted in figure 1. A new analyst will join an organization at tier 1 and work their way to a team leader. From there, they might be promoted into tier 2 and maybe even eventually become team leader again. The next logical position is to replace the service manager.

Figure 1 – Traditional Career Path

This type of career path can provide a clear path of promotion. However, the time to promotion may take years and in high-attrition environments this may actually decrease team motivation.

In other organizations such as call centers, the organization is viewed as essentially flat. With all CSRs reporting to a supervisor, there is little or no opportunity to create a career path. In these environments, there maybe ratios of 100 or more CSRs to one supervisor. It is difficult to develop a career path for so many employees when there is only one logical position to move to in a promotion.

Step 1 – Identify Support Positions

The first step to creating a career path is to identify the different positions within the support environment. Traditional positions include but are not limited to the following:

• Level 1 Analyst
• Level 2 Analyst
• Level 1 Team Lead
• Level 2 Team Lead
• Service Desk Manager

Depending on the size of your organization, other positions include:

• Quality Assurance Manager
• Problem Coordinator
• Knowledge Manager
• Email Coordinator
• Fulfillment Coordinator
• Communication Manager
• Reporting Analyst
• Trainer

Different positions within the support organization can create a much more robust career path that moves an employee through increasingly more difficult roles prior to reaching the final goal of a service desk manager. The enhanced career path would look like the path defined in Figure 2.

Figure 2 – Enhanced Career Path

Step 2 – Define Responsibilities

After defining positions, the career path can be further enhanced by also identifying all key processes and additional responsibilities. Additional responsibilities could be defined as:

• Scheduling
• Queue management
• Root Cause Trending & Identification
• Severity-1 Communication Coordination
• Service Level Management
• Staffing
• Document maintenance
• New hire interviews
• Call monitoring
• Ticket review
• Solution testing
• FAQ creation
• Customer newsletter
• Call closure
• Technical Support Partner liaison

The possibilities are endless and can be determined by the unique needs of your support organization structure, technologies, services and products. The enhanced career path would now include changes in roles and responsibilities between each position.

Step 3 – Map to Training Plan

In order to successfully implement the enhance career path, a training plan must be developed that combines technical and soft skills training with the identified positions and responsibilities. A training plan using our previous examples of positions and responsibilities is shown in figure 3.

Figure 3 – Training Plan

Step 4 – Set Employee Expectations

The final step is to formalize the career plan. Position descriptions must be written that identify the required skills, expectations for performance, and the tasks that are required of the position. Within each position description, we also outline the different roles, the training provided and expected timeframes to move to the next position. The most important step is to provide a strict list of requirements prior to be considered for promotion into the next position. These requirements can be a level of high performance for six months, achievement scores for the required training of 80% or higher and above average demonstration of abilities in performance reviews.

Communicate the changes in positions, roles and career path to all current employees and utilize it to recruit new employees. Potential employees have a choice of which employer meets their needs today and in the future. In the coming years, shortages of workers will require employers to develop robust retention schemes – this enhanced career path will demonstrate career diversity and a company culture where employees want to work and thrive.

Imagine the Possibilities

With careful planning, even the most flat organization can be engineered into a productive, nurturing environment where management not only provides a career path but also provides a progressive training plan to develop the skills for success. The career path shown above is only an example of what is possible in a standard support or service organization. Your actual implementation is only limited by your ability to use your creativity and enthusiasm to drive change and provide growth for your team.

About Julie L. Mohr…………………………………………

For over 14 years, Julie L. Mohr has been passionate about service and support management. Her broad range of experiences include teaching ITSM and COBIT courses worldwide, working as Director of Professional Services for IHS Support Solutions, Consulting Practice Principal for Agilità and Pomeroy, Managing Consultant with ARC and Director of Outsourcing at Seneca. She has worked as a technical advisor to the Department of Education, a support manager at the National Institutes of Health and as a support analyst at NASA. Julie is a certified Helpdesk Director from Helpdesk 2000 and certified ITIL® Service Manager.

Julie provides imaginative insight and dynamic leadership to transform service and support organizations into best practice, customer-focused environments. She has helped organizations to implement Knowledge Management, ITSM, IT Governance, organization structures, service catalogs and service level management. Julie is an active contributor to the future development of the industry through speaking engagements at conferences worldwide and publishing over 150 articles on best practices. Julie is the author of The Help Desk Audit: Blueprint for Success, The Help Desk Toolkit: Companion CD and The Help Desk Dictionary, and maintains an informative industry website for practitioners at www.blueprintaudits.com. She is also a member of IEEE Computer Society, ISACA, HDI, itSMF, ICMI and the Association of Support Professionals. You can contact Julie at: jlmohr@blueprintaudits.com, 530-750-0240