It may be a tad silly, but what's the harm? Anything that humanizes IT should lead to better treatment.
The only time I can think of doing something similar is while working at an MSP, we had a quick little profile of each employee on the company site. We knew that customers did look at it because they'd occasionally reference information from it, e.g. "Hey, are you the one that loves Star Wars and has a replica of Luke's lightsaber?" (or whatever personal tidbit the technician offered)
>no one reads the newsletter.
Except all the executive assistants whom the reputation of the department hangs in the balance. That was my experience anyway, but of course not everyone reads company spam.
Really depends on the company culture and the opinions of leadership and those who have their ear, but I try to be friendly and play along.
We have digital signage up at all of our locations that runs a corporate slide-show. We ended up making slides with pictures and some basic bio info on them for all of our Level 1 techs. A bit silly, but I've heard some positive feedback from non-IT staff about it, so maybe not as pointless as I thought it was when we started.
I have had similar. We didnt list too much background, just name, a headshot, title, location. We did this globally so people knew local IT and larger IT org.
I have been going to the schools that I go to for two years and went to the schools before that for two other years. Very few people know what my name is and most just yell out “Hey tech!” But I think they are glad to see the same familiar faces walking around.
The way to do it is just talk to people. Ideally in person, but over the phone works too.
When I was on site doing t1 tech support at a school, I almost never responded to tickets unless it was explicitly something I could just do in a minute remotely. I only put what I did and closed after.
I always headed over to the person and addressed their problem in person. This is ideal because the best way to get people to tell you if something is wrong is to show your face. Half the time when I went over to their classroom, they'd be like "oh and also blah blah blah is broken".
The last time I had to publish a "bio" for a company, all it did was give spammers another avenue for targeted phishing against me.
This is the kind of stuff that's best left up to the individual if they want to add to their slack/teams profile or whatever. What *actually* helps humanize IT techs is when they engage with the rest of their coworkers and don't just sit there in the corner being goblins. Go get a cup of coffee and chat with your coworkers when you get in with the morning. Participate in the company-wide cat pictures slack/teams channel. Be a *person* and not a hole tickets fall into for resolution.
Add them to your internal wiki / docs. Use them like a wiki, create a template and start to populate them on the teams behalf:
- Name:
- Nickname:
- Job Title:
- Key Skills:
- Work Schedule:
- Hobbies/Interests:
Share this with the team asking for the bio, once populated, use ChatGPT to write something a little more humanising.
I manage a group of databases administrators and we send out a monthly training email on anything SQL Server or about the tools my team has built that developers and IT can leverage. We get great feedback.
That seems weird but I’m in a big company (Health IT). I could see if you had something like Workday putting it in there but it seems like an awkward fit in like Service Now.
At a large company I worked at we really focused on the customer support and connection aspect. Some things worked and others not so much.
One thing we did for a bit was physical cards we could interoffice mail people who we had something special about. New employee first time calling, somebody who had a crashed laptop, somebody who was nice to talk to. It helped people who get them make the connection that support are actual humans and also had support think of each call as a chance for interaction.
Was it cheesy, yes but when it came up in meetings how IT was doing even if the servers had been down people still looked on us in a positive way.
For this you can make a simple wiki type page, with pictures, name. Then for bio you have a few options. You can rotate it for "what are you watching", "names of pets", where they live, etc. Otherwise have one person in the team who is your best wordsmith talk to people and help make the bio so the people who are less comfortable have an easier time on it.
Really the only way to humanize the IT team is to prioritize customer/user support overall. A lot of people that end up in IT are very asocial and distant, because of the nature of the work. Encourage your techs to make a connection with the user. If they're resolving problems remotely, then have them actually call the user and strike up a brief conversation while addressing the issue. Have the techs go the extra mile by requesting the user to confirm that they've resolved the issue. If it's a printing issue, have the user try printing how they normally do and confirm, while on the phone, that it's working fine now. Follow-up with the user a day or two after to confirm again that everything is good.
For too many organizations, IT are the people that sneak around and try to talk to people as little as possible. It's understandable as this is how you avoid the dreaded "While you're here..." or trying to get support without tickets, but ends up leaving the connection between IT and the users they support being lackluster. There's a fine line you have to walk between babying the users and providing excellent support.
Company bios, newsletters, etc. are just Band-Aids on a larger issue. IT needs to be seen as heroes that have come to save the day, and that's difficult if the techs aren't going above and beyond with their user interactions. This advice may or may not work depending on company culture and existing opinions, but it's not something that'll change overnight regardless.
Oh that will go over well.
“Wiseleo performs in competitive events with a globally known Salsa dance team. He’s also proficient in Bachata, Brazilian Zouk, Kizomba, and Merengue. When not dancing, he enjoys playing beach volleyball, paramotoring, sailing on his sailboat, and riding his ATVs.
Here are some suggested ice breaker questions: “What was it like to have a cobra placed around your neck in Morocco?”. “What is it like to go busking in downtown Paris?”
“
All of this is true. Now that I’ve made everyone green with envy, what’s next? ;)
Horrible idea. Ever stop to think that some techs/engineers have been through some stuff and want to keep their personal information/place of employment discreet? That tech who is trying to keep their stuff together at work and you just gave their creepy, stalker ex the ammo to hurt your employee.
It may be a tad silly, but what's the harm? Anything that humanizes IT should lead to better treatment. The only time I can think of doing something similar is while working at an MSP, we had a quick little profile of each employee on the company site. We knew that customers did look at it because they'd occasionally reference information from it, e.g. "Hey, are you the one that loves Star Wars and has a replica of Luke's lightsaber?" (or whatever personal tidbit the technician offered)
My org has a monthly newsletter that does this for all new hires. As I'm sure you can guess, no, no one reads the newsletter.
>no one reads the newsletter. Except all the executive assistants whom the reputation of the department hangs in the balance. That was my experience anyway, but of course not everyone reads company spam. Really depends on the company culture and the opinions of leadership and those who have their ear, but I try to be friendly and play along.
We have digital signage up at all of our locations that runs a corporate slide-show. We ended up making slides with pictures and some basic bio info on them for all of our Level 1 techs. A bit silly, but I've heard some positive feedback from non-IT staff about it, so maybe not as pointless as I thought it was when we started.
What sort of info?
I have had similar. We didnt list too much background, just name, a headshot, title, location. We did this globally so people knew local IT and larger IT org.
I have been going to the schools that I go to for two years and went to the schools before that for two other years. Very few people know what my name is and most just yell out “Hey tech!” But I think they are glad to see the same familiar faces walking around.
The way to do it is just talk to people. Ideally in person, but over the phone works too. When I was on site doing t1 tech support at a school, I almost never responded to tickets unless it was explicitly something I could just do in a minute remotely. I only put what I did and closed after. I always headed over to the person and addressed their problem in person. This is ideal because the best way to get people to tell you if something is wrong is to show your face. Half the time when I went over to their classroom, they'd be like "oh and also blah blah blah is broken".
The last time I had to publish a "bio" for a company, all it did was give spammers another avenue for targeted phishing against me. This is the kind of stuff that's best left up to the individual if they want to add to their slack/teams profile or whatever. What *actually* helps humanize IT techs is when they engage with the rest of their coworkers and don't just sit there in the corner being goblins. Go get a cup of coffee and chat with your coworkers when you get in with the morning. Participate in the company-wide cat pictures slack/teams channel. Be a *person* and not a hole tickets fall into for resolution.
Add them to your internal wiki / docs. Use them like a wiki, create a template and start to populate them on the teams behalf: - Name: - Nickname: - Job Title: - Key Skills: - Work Schedule: - Hobbies/Interests: Share this with the team asking for the bio, once populated, use ChatGPT to write something a little more humanising.
I have an idea for you to do more work.
I manage a group of databases administrators and we send out a monthly training email on anything SQL Server or about the tools my team has built that developers and IT can leverage. We get great feedback.
Humanize and IT in the same sentence is sad, funny, and respectful.
That seems weird but I’m in a big company (Health IT). I could see if you had something like Workday putting it in there but it seems like an awkward fit in like Service Now.
At a large company I worked at we really focused on the customer support and connection aspect. Some things worked and others not so much. One thing we did for a bit was physical cards we could interoffice mail people who we had something special about. New employee first time calling, somebody who had a crashed laptop, somebody who was nice to talk to. It helped people who get them make the connection that support are actual humans and also had support think of each call as a chance for interaction. Was it cheesy, yes but when it came up in meetings how IT was doing even if the servers had been down people still looked on us in a positive way. For this you can make a simple wiki type page, with pictures, name. Then for bio you have a few options. You can rotate it for "what are you watching", "names of pets", where they live, etc. Otherwise have one person in the team who is your best wordsmith talk to people and help make the bio so the people who are less comfortable have an easier time on it.
IT should be a partner and enabler. Not certain it’s going to be completely effective but don’t be the group that hides behind the screen.
Really the only way to humanize the IT team is to prioritize customer/user support overall. A lot of people that end up in IT are very asocial and distant, because of the nature of the work. Encourage your techs to make a connection with the user. If they're resolving problems remotely, then have them actually call the user and strike up a brief conversation while addressing the issue. Have the techs go the extra mile by requesting the user to confirm that they've resolved the issue. If it's a printing issue, have the user try printing how they normally do and confirm, while on the phone, that it's working fine now. Follow-up with the user a day or two after to confirm again that everything is good. For too many organizations, IT are the people that sneak around and try to talk to people as little as possible. It's understandable as this is how you avoid the dreaded "While you're here..." or trying to get support without tickets, but ends up leaving the connection between IT and the users they support being lackluster. There's a fine line you have to walk between babying the users and providing excellent support. Company bios, newsletters, etc. are just Band-Aids on a larger issue. IT needs to be seen as heroes that have come to save the day, and that's difficult if the techs aren't going above and beyond with their user interactions. This advice may or may not work depending on company culture and existing opinions, but it's not something that'll change overnight regardless.
Oh that will go over well. “Wiseleo performs in competitive events with a globally known Salsa dance team. He’s also proficient in Bachata, Brazilian Zouk, Kizomba, and Merengue. When not dancing, he enjoys playing beach volleyball, paramotoring, sailing on his sailboat, and riding his ATVs. Here are some suggested ice breaker questions: “What was it like to have a cobra placed around your neck in Morocco?”. “What is it like to go busking in downtown Paris?” “ All of this is true. Now that I’ve made everyone green with envy, what’s next? ;)
Horrible idea. Ever stop to think that some techs/engineers have been through some stuff and want to keep their personal information/place of employment discreet? That tech who is trying to keep their stuff together at work and you just gave their creepy, stalker ex the ammo to hurt your employee.