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The RealReal

Improving Employee Retention in Help Desk

“Hey, got a second to chat?” is a phrase that will cause my heart to drop. I know what is coming just as soon as my office door closes; “I got a job offer and it's better than my current one.” One situation that seems to affect almost all help desk management is how to reduce turnover on the desk. No one wants their top talent or institutional knowledge leaving, especially for preventable reasons. In the current market, the top two reasons I hear the most are: money and remote work.

The offer is more money; of course it is. Every company recruiting today knows that there are more jobs than people on the market. Current companies losing help desk employees are likely paying 25-50 percent of the position’s salary range. The company recruiting your talent is paying between 75-100 percent of their position’s salary range. How can we change our team members' minds? The first thing to stop is the idea that pay raises are purely merit based and happen once a year at annual reviews. Your talent is leaving the next quarter after reviews and you are chasing them out the door with more money to keep them. In their head, they want to know why you couldn’t give them that money when they deserved it instead of now that they are leaving. One way to get ahead of resignations is to order a salary review based on current market conditions through your human resources department. Acting on those market indicators and raising an employee's pay accordingly makes them feel valued and wanted, which goes a long way in retaining an employee.

The tougher issue to solve is remote work, especially depending on your industry. Over the last few years, everyone has learned that, whether management likes it or not, their job can be done without being in the office every day. This is especially true of the help desk.

We know that there are some hurdles here, but let's look at the base job function performed by the help desk: They answer tickets from end users and fix their problem. Where are the end users? Working from home. Where is the help desk? Sitting in the office. Why does the entire help desk need to be in the building to support end users that are not in the office? Remote management tools make it possible for end users to get support from anywhere, which also means they can be supported from anywhere. One pushback I hear frequently is the age-old “how will I know they are working?” That is a fair question and you will use the same KPIs and metrics you use today: tickets completed, calls answered, SLAs met, and customer satisfaction. These metrics have traditionally told us whether a team member is working effectively, needing coaching, or rising to the top of our talent pool. All are very quantifiable and easy to build a case, with human resources, should a situation arise that requires a more formal performance improvement plan. An easy way to dip your toe in the water here is a hybrid model where every team member gets some work from home time and some office time.

One way to get ahead of resignations is to order a salary review based on current market conditions through your human resources department. Acting on those market indicators and raising an employee's pay accordingly makes them feel valued and wanted, which goes a long way in retaining an employee.


The other major issue facing remote work on the help desk that requires a bit more work is how to get equipment and accessories to the end user's location? Most of the top names in VARs have a warehousing function that costs you nothing. They will drop ship that computer or accessory directly to the end user for you. They can also asset tag your computers and even image them, though these services usually add a nominal fee. For accessories, another option is to use the business side of that company that gets all those things to your house in a day or two. Your team members can order the items, management can approve, and the items are then directly shipped to the end user. Having your computers in a MDM makes it easy to remotely reimage the computer when something more serious arises. A quick reimage at the end user's location will get them back working in about an hour instead of a day or two with shipping computers each direction. This can also be a creative way to cut down on internal shipping costs.

With a little practical and appropriate work on our side as leaders, we can retain our team members, even in this market. Ultimately this makes our jobs easier, our team members happy, and our end users working smoothly. It will also turn those, “hey, got a second” chats into a much happier conversation about something other than “I’ve got another job offer.”

The articles from these contributors are based on their personal expertise and viewpoints, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of their employers or affiliated organizations.