Table of Contents
Introduction
It goes without saying that the helpdesk teams in companies are some of the most overworked teams in any organisation. They need to take care of every employee, current, potential or past, and make sure they are finding it convenient and comfortable to deal with your business. However, that also means these people are often the most burnt out among your employees. They often do not have sufficient technological support to ease their burden. In fact, Springworks’ research shows that almost 55% of surveyed staff (71% HR, 29% non-HR) responded that they were only “somewhat satisfied” with their current HR/IT helpdesk setup.
Just as with customer-facing roles, employee-facing roles like internal helpdesks and HR always come under a lot of fire even though they are just trying to do their job as instructed by the company. Often, when they are blamed by employees for failing to resolve their issues, the truth is that they lack the tools and accessories they need to help you to your full satisfaction. They are experiencing support overload and even a little bit of relief can go a long way in helping them.
What Does Support Overload Signify?
When a company faces support overload, it means that its helpdesk teams are overburdened. While this may seem like a regular overworking issue that does not require its own name, the truth is that support overload is a common issue that plagues many organisations. The reason might be that while other employees are involved in only one or few teams or departments, helpdesk executives, like HR and IT, have to deal with problems from every team and department. This obviously takes quite a toll on them.
When the issues become too many or too much to handle, it leads to support overload. While the most common incidents that trigger such an overload include downsizing and pay cuts, resistance to policy change, roadblocks in a particular universally utilised operation or tool and so on, sometimes, it can happen during times of peace too, negatively impacting employee satisfaction and opinion. In fact, the State of the HR/IT & Employee Helpdesk Experience of 2023 reports that 65% of people felt helpdesks actually reduced workplace productivity, and consequently, endangered company revenue. The number may not seem significant on such a small scale but when there are hundreds or thousands of employees involved, even this fractional drop can cause a lot of overwhelming situations.
In such cases, even when everything is running smoothly, the helpdesk staff could be under a lot of pressure, specifically to keep things running smoothly so that the status quo is maintained. However, there is nothing ideal about this situation. If your support staff are facing such burdens, it makes sense to find a way to lighten the load. Most steps will require time and effort to implement effectively, but the immediate action that can give respite is a digital tool built to take over some of the more mundane, automatable tasks that they do. Assima is known for offering a range of training and onboarding technologies you can look into for the same.
Give your Helpdesk team some relief from common employee queries with Assima In-App Search.
What are Some Signs of Support Overload?
When helpdesk employees are overloaded, it is natural that like any other worker, they too would either start neglecting their duties or simply find a way to show on paper that they were completed, without much concern for quality or sentiments. Here are some giveaway indications that your helpdesk team needs a helping hand:
- They become much less concerned with etiquette and discipline. A helpdesk personnel is supposed to help the enquirer to the best of their abilities while remaining as polite and professional as possible. When overworked, such concerns often get thrown out the backdoor out of frustration and a wish to just get the day over with.
- They no longer worry about compliance or reputation. If there are more tasks on their plate than they can possibly chew, they no longer care about rules and regulations. Even though helpdesk staff realise, perhaps more than anyone else, that showing such carelessness can seriously cost the company, they are too overwhelmed to care anymore.
- Ignoring non-essential tasks, cutting corners and ignoring paperwork is a classic sign of being overworked and the same is true for helpdesk employees. They simply lose their efficiency and try to get the urgent tasks out of the way until something else pops up, leaving them with no time to take care of routine work.
- There would also be a significant drop in productivity and the quality of output that comes out of the department. More and more employees would end up without their issues resolved and queries answered. Gradually, the number of calls and requests to them would also drop as people realise that it is easier to find the solution themselves.
- Stress would be at an all-time high and mental health and job satisfaction would take a backseat. While this is not suitable for any worker, it is more so for helpdesk employees as the level of employee engagement and wellness among them can directly affect that of their colleagues in other departments who they interact with.
- When the repercussions of support overload spill over to the entire workforce, a “We vs Them” sentiment arises. As the helpdesk staff become more abrasive, other workers start considering them as only a champion of the company and not their own interests. This friction can jeopardise the efficiency and general health of the working environment.
What Challenges do Helpdesk Teams Face due to Support Overload?
Support overload is a multi-faceted issue. It does not result from a single problem that escalates. When a number of troubles gradually arise, escaping early detection, they end up adding to each other and causing a massive burden on helpdesk personnel. These include:
Logistical Burdens of Daily Operations
Recruitments, onboardings, lay-offs and resignations, legal and financial negotiations and management, ticket management and resolution, general query resolution – there is no end to the list of things that the helpdesk team must take care of. When these tasks pile up faster than the team can clear them reliably, it leads to support overload. The cause of this kind of overload is mostly due to not having the digital tools and applications necessary for fast and smooth working or using archaic programs to get the job done.
Assima In-App Search is the perfect low-maintenance tool for relieving support overload.
Emotional Strain from Multiple Issues Handled
One of the things most other employees working in non-client-facing roles do not encounter is the constant human interactions that require you to be on your toes all the time, the need to remember a variety of information or at least ways to access them, and the responsibility to cool down heated situations. This can cause a huge mental strain on even the biggest people’s person. The emotional exhaustion is as tiring to helpdesk employees as logistical overload.
Responsibility to Conserve Brand Reputation
Helpdesk employees hold the very important responsibility of maintaining the reputation of the brand as well as the organisation in general. Even a small misstep can put the entire organisation in jeopardy, with the worst scenario being a lawsuit. Hence, often, their hands are tied in certain situations, which ends up with them bearing the brunt of things that might not even be their fault.
Necessity to Maintain Compliance and Accuracy
People who work mostly with non-human components have the opportunity and time to ensure that all compliance requirements are met and the data they work with is accurate. But with helpdesk employees, it is quite different. They have to be aware of compliance and accuracy at every moment, especially in conversations where there is hardly any chance of rectification once a statement or information is out. This can take a huge toll on them, especially in circumstances involving cross-connected rules and policies.
Constant Need to Stay Updated on Company Matters
Since helpdesk staff work across the workforce, they deal with people from every department and team in the organisation. That implies they have to stay up-to-date on any matter of the company that can possibly come up in their interactions or operations. Without proper technological support, this can become a major challenge, especially among newer members who have just joined the company and are yet to get accustomed to how it works in the industry.
Maintaining Harmony Between Workforce and Management
The responsibility for the resolution of any operational issue that crops up in the office is on the helpdesk team. Whether it be a simple glitch or a serious issue with legal implications, helpdesk employees have to deal with it and ensure a compatible working environment is restored. Being a peacemaker can be a highly stressful job, especially when the workforce and management are not on the same page most of the time.
How Does Assima In-App Search Relieve Support Overload?
Assima In-App Search is a godsend for helpdesk teams. It is an employee self-service helpdesk platform that provides highly contextual information to employees at the point of need. The tool features an Automatic Search act as well as a Manual Search that allows employees to access any information they need from the knowledgebase with a single click. The results that show up dynamically will be intelligently filtered based on your role, current task, current progress, and other need-based criteria. Comprehensive content access ensures that all information related to the task in question would be available to the worker.
The tool acts on top of the live system and guides users logically through every step. Gone will be the days when employees would be reaching out to the helpdesk for every little doubt. Fewer tickets would be raised, which would highly relieve the load on the helpdesk teams. Since most of the issues that require human interaction would be taken care of by the platform, hedesk staff can breathe easy and escape much of the social anxiety of a problem that refuses to get solved or even a possible altercation. Assima’s In-App Search is geared to provide maximum support to employees so that helpdesk teams can take it easy and avoid support overload.
To Conclude
It is advisable never to let support overload reach its peak before thinking of ways to de-escalate the issue. The helpdesk is the backbone as well as the face of your organisation. When they are weighed down by too much pressure, it can take a toll on the entire operational body. With Assima In-App Search, you can give them their much-deserved technological brace and do your other employees a favour too.
Frequently Asked Questions
Let’s Answer Some of Your Questions.
No, your helpdesk team is indispensable to you as they handle many responsibilities that only a human person can. However, Assima In-App Search is extremely helpful in taking over tasks that are better managed digitally so that the load on the helpdesk is reduced.
Check to see if the symptoms of support overload as we discussed in this blog are slowly disappearing. You can also survey your helpdesk employees to find out if they feel any relief.
Assima In-App Search can connect with most knowledgebases, including legacy systems. However, if recorded documentation is not available, there is not much we can do there. You can talk to your helpdesk employees to see if you can start building a knowledgebase or investigate external knowledgebases to see if one is suitable for your organisation too.
One of the reasons employees prefer the human element when getting technical problems resolved is that it can be too difficult and time-consuming to figure out what to do on their own. They prefer talking to someone who can hold their hands through the process. However, that is not a problem your employees will face with Assima as the In-App Search provides task guides that take you through each step and are easy to follow.
While making the knowledgebase universally available is definitely an avenue you can explore that might even be a hit among the tech-savvy crowd, it may not sit so well with those who are not as familiar with the technical side of things. Browsing the knowledgebase and going through tech-heavy content to find the exact information one is looking for can be taxing to most of your employees. Assima In-App Search is simply the smarter way of doing the same. With its dynamic and contextual results, employees will get the right information at the right point without so much effort.
