5 Tips to Keep Your Help Desk Workers Happy During a Large-Scale Move

by Stephanie Faris on Monday, June 08 6:00

Your server movers aren t the only ones who will be expected to work hard during your upcoming move. If you have help desk workers on staff, they re facing long hours and weeks of headaches, lasting long after your IT relocation specialists have completed their end of the work. They re the ones who will be forced to deal with all of the small things that occur after servers or computers have been moved from one location to another.

If you re planning a sizeable move in the future, it s important to start thinking about your technical support now. Whether you have full-time tech support staff or not, you may need to bring in contract workers to help with all of the little things, especially if your end users aren t self-sufficient. As move day approaches, here are five things you should do to prepare your help desk and ease the transition as much as possible.

Include Them

From the start, bring your help desk workers in on the planning process by inviting them to meetings and including them on emails. You may choose to include only the help desk supervisor and have that person pass information down. However, you should still ensure information about the move is making its way to the technicians.

Make a Plan

You re spending a large amount of time planning how your equipment will physically get from your current location to the new site. But you should also put time into planning the end-user side of things. Each user s devices will need to connect to the server as soon as possible after the move, so it s important to have a plan in place to have those workers available to disconnect the old equipment and reconnect new equipment as quickly as possible. By putting a plan in place and communicating that plan, every worker will know exactly where he s supposed to be at every point of the move.

Instruct Users

Even businesses with a full-fledged help desk team do not have a one-to-one user-to-technician ratio. This means your employees will have to handle a great deal of their own breakdown and hookup. If you still have desktops, workers should be provided instructions for storing cables during the move and given permission to hook their equipment back up at the new location. This will relieve your technicians of going from one desk to another to plug computers in after the move.

Urge Patience

In the days that follow the move, chaos can easily reign. Emphasize to technicians and staff that no work is to be done without a call to the help desk to place a work request. This will keep your help desk team from being called from one desk to the next every time they respond to a trouble call.

Most importantly, show your appreciation for your technicians once the move is complete. Your team will work hard to ensure your business operates smoothly during and after the move. You should thank them by giving them an extra day off or hosting a special luncheon to show you are thankful for their work.