What IT Service Desk Managers Need to Know About Workforce and Talent Management

It’s a generalization, admittedly, but how often does the excuse “people who have excelled at technology management get promoted to manage and lead teams of people” get quoted when people-related issues are discussed in IT? It’s potentially a root cause of the people issues we commonly see (in IT), but it’s not the only one. Ultimately, managing and leading people is challenging, with it difficult for many line managers, no matter how well they do it.

Thankfully, the ITIL 4 body of service management best practice guidance offers people-management best practice content in its Workforce and Talent Management Practice Guide. This article shines a light on this content, particularly emphasizing the people management needs of IT service desk managers.

Here @Joe_the_IT_Guy shines a light on the ITIL 4 Workforce and Talent Management Practice Guide, particularly emphasizing the people management needs of IT #servicedesk managers. #ITSM Click To Tweet

Where do you start with people management?

As with most opportunities to improve, a good starting point is the assessment of the status quo. In the case of people management, there might already be corporate mechanisms and data points that highlight what’s currently done well or not.

It might be feedback from staff 1-2-1s, formal 360-degree feedback exercises, or business-wide employee satisfaction surveys. Or it could be a concern based on industry data such as the ITSM.tools Well-being in IT Service Management (ITSM) survey which found that:

• 88% of survey respondents thought working in IT would get harder over the next three years
• 67% of survey respondents stated that working in IT has adversely affected their well-being to some extent
• The well-being issues correlate with the lack of personal recognition.

Whichever of these is used, it’s important to understand the current state of your people management.

How were you developed to be a great people manager?

You might consider yourself a great manager. You might consider yourself a poor manager. Either way, you could be wrong. Or you could be partially correct. Or you could be right, but you still have room to improve in certain areas.

As an IT service desk manager, all the above-mentioned data points and insight sources can be used to gauge your people management performance and improvement opportunities. However, a cheeky question to reflect on here is, “What people management training did you receive to equip you for your IT service desk manager role?” You won’t be alone if the answer is “too little” or “none.”

But, understanding the status quo is only the starting point, with the resulting actions – not the baseline – most important.

The ITIL 4 Workforce and Talent Management Practice Guide

If you haven’t taken the ITIL exams, then it’s likely that the availability of the Workforce and Talent Management ITIL 4 Practice Guide has passed you by. With ITIL 4 moving ITIL v3/2011 from 26 processes to 34 practices, there’s still much changed or new ITIL best practice guidance remaining in the shadow of the long-adopted ITIL “core” processes/practices such as incident, change, and problem management.

When asked what changed with ITIL 4, many would focus on this change from processes to practices and the laser focus on value co-creation. However, the added people-focused elements of ITIL 4 might have been missed. Or the organizational change management (OCM) practice guide might have taken the spotlight, with the ITIL 4 Workforce and Talent Management Practice Guide unfortunately missed.

When you think of ITIL 4 do you think of the change from processes to practices & the laser focus on value co-creation? This is good, but don't forget the people-focused elements of ITIL 4. Here @Joe_the_IT_Guy explains. #servicedesk #ITSM Click To Tweet

So, how can the Workforce and Talent Management ITIL 4 Practice Guide help?

It might seem silly to say this, but there’s value in the Workforce and Talent Management Practice’s purpose statement alone. Because it shows the breadth of people management requirements and, thus, where IT service desk managers need people management capabilities:

“… to ensure that the organization has the right people, with the appropriate skills and knowledge, in the correct roles to support its business objectives. This practice covers a broad set of activities focused on successfully engaging with the organization’s employees and people resources, including: planning, recruitment, onboarding, learning and development, performance measurement, and succession planning.”

Source: Axelos, Workforce and Talent Management ITIL 4 Practice Guide (2020)

Much of this is considered the responsibility of the corporate Human Resources (HR) function. However, while HR might set the people-related strategies, policies, and practices that cover the IT service desk, the IT service desk manager and other IT support leaders need to action them.

As an example of this, the aforementioned well-being survey also showed the disparity between employee perceptions of corporate people “mechanisms”/capabilities and their line manager application. When asked, “Does your organization have suitable mechanisms for preventing and helping with employee well-being issues?”, only 2% of the survey respondents said “no” (and 11% didn’t know). Whereas, when asked, “Do you think that your immediate manager is suitably skilled to identify and deal with employee well-being issues?”, 32% of the survey respondents said “no” (and 2% didn’t know). It’s a significant delta that highlights, even if only based on employee perceptions, line management in IT can be improved.

It might be that well-being wasn’t a concern when people-management training and education was provided (if any was provided at all). And this highlights another people-management issue for IT service desk managers. That, like anything else within an IT service desk manager’s responsibility, people management needs are likely subject to continual change as various factors influence IT service desk recruitment and retention. For example, changes to business and IT policies, ways of working, technological enablement (including artificial intelligence), skillsets, employee expectations, and external factors such as people-management best practices and IT skills shortages.

'In my opinion the ITIL 4 workforce & talent management practice guide should be a part of an IT service desk manager’s toolkit' - @Joe_the_IT_Guy. Here's why. #ITSM #ServiceDesk Click To Tweet

For me, this adds to the importance of the ITIL 4 workforce and talent management practice guide being part of an IT service desk manager’s toolkit (even if they haven’t undertaken any form of ITIL 4 certification).

Where the Workforce and Talent Management ITIL 4 Practice Guide helps

The first thing to state is that this practice guide doesn’t have all the answers. If only because people management is complicated, with one-size-fits-all approaches not applicable. However, it offers an IT service desk manager a view of what effective people management entails and an overview of the latest people management thinking and best practices. It’s a shortcut for IT service desk managers to know how to best support their teams and the individuals within them.

The practice guide includes the following:

• “Holistic organizational planning, including the organizational structure, culture, competencies, and other factors
• Managing and improving the organization’s identity and image
• Managing the organization’s workforce
• Managing the organization’s talents
• Managing and improving the employees’ journeys and experience
• Ensuring ongoing oversight of people’s roles, behaviors, and experiences in the organization.”

As well as pointing IT service desk managers to other ITIL 4 practice guides that contain people-management guidance relevant to their role:

• “Managing organizational changes – organizational change management
• Managing internal relationships as well as relationships with partners and consumers – relationship management
• Managing project-specific training, onboarding, and other workforce-related projects – project management
• Planning capacity and identifying demand for change in the number of employees – capacity and performance management
• Identifying and managing people-related risks – risk management.”

People management is complicated, with one-size-fits-all approaches not applicable. But the ITIL 4 Workforce and Talent Management practice guide CAN help says @Joe_the_IT_Guy. #servicedesk #ITSM Click To Tweet

Ultimately, the Workforce and Talent Management ITIL 4 Practice Guide is designed to help IT service desk managers (and other ITSM practitioners) understand the breadth of what’s needed. With best practice guidance offered to enable them to start doing what’s required in fulfilling the people-management elements of their role.

Have you made use of the Workforce and Talent Management practice guide? Please share your experiences in the comments.