As the university made the rapid transition to remote education and a largely remote workforce last month, the Division of Information Technology’s Help Desk and Academic Technology teams experienced support call volumes 3-4 times higher than normal, sustained over several days.
It was nothing short of a tremendous load, with success dependent on an “all hands lifting” approach. And critical players in that heavy lift included the more than 220 student employees who work for DoIT while pursuing their studies at UW–Madison.
“They did a fantastic job of stepping up,” DoIT Help Desk Team Lead Hannah Pringle said of the Help Desk’s 100 student employees, many of whom acted as agents supporting faculty, staff and fellow students via phone, email and chat.
“This was a huge collaborative effort, and the students were there to help us with everything from calls to scheduling to distributing equipment to training,” Pringle added.
And while National Student Employment Week officially took place from April 12-18, DoIT’s gratitude for its student crew’s exemplary efforts isn’t limited to a single week.
“They have one of the highest work ethics of all the student teams I’ve ever worked with,” Pringle says. “Even as they were themselves transitioning to online classes, they were so focused on assisting the university. They’re just intrinsically motivated to help UW–Madison, even as they’re balancing their studies in an entirely new way.”
Tackling key challenges
A graduating senior from West Bend, Wisconsin, Help Desk Student Team Lead Jimmy Griffin was one of many student difference-makers. As the decision was made to close the Walk-In Help Desk at the Computer Sciences building, Griffin led efforts to quickly cross-train the agents who typically provide in-person support so they were able to pivot to providing support remotely, via phones, email and chat.
A computer science major who’s also completing a certificate in game design, Griffin described the cross-training efforts—undertaken in just a manner of days—as “intense.”
“Thankfully, we had already been working throughout the year on the goal of trying to bring everyone together as one big Help Desk, with a shared bank of knowledge between our two avenues of support,” Griffin said. “But of course this became super important when we began realizing the campus closure implications.”
Disseminating information to all the student employees was another key challenge, which Student Team Lead Eric Maccoux helped to tackle.
“From the day the statement went out from Chancellor Blank saying the campus was closing, all of the information was rapidly changing, especially in the first couple of days,” recalls Maccoux, a junior from Dyckesville, Wisconsin, near Green Bay. “So it became really important to keep everyone up to date as things kept changing.”
Maccoux, a computer science major also pursuing a certificate in math, has also stayed on top of building staffing schedules for each week as the student team works remotely.
“Moving forward into the summer, we’re adapting everyone’s schedules to this pandemic,” Maccoux explains. “A lot of people had internships but those were cancelled, or they haven’t heard back on their status. So it’s definitely been a challenge to be able to put everybody’s complicated availability into a schedule.”
Maccoux also helps train new agents, or train current agents up to new skill levels. That’s also been a challenge in the remote work setting, he says.
“It’s a lot harder, training someone to take chats or emails. It’s definitely easier to have someone sitting next to me,” Maccoux says. “But in terms of communicating with the customers – whether that’s over the phone, or chat or email, I don’t think we’ve really lost anything. We still have that ability to do everything we used to do, just at home.”
Maccoux, who worked five summers at a local ice cream place in his hometown, says working for the Help Desk for the past two years has been a perfect fit. He even met his girlfriend through a Help Desk connection.
“It’s probably my favorite job I’ve ever had,” Maccoux said. “I love the people here, it’s extremely flexible, and it lets me use my skills in both technology and customer service.”
‘Professionalism and fun’
Griffin describes the workplace environment among the Help Desk student employees as “a very unique blend of professionalism and fun.”
“We’re working with world-class customers, helping them with very important services and projects, so the work we’re doing is critical and we know that,” Griffin says. “But at the same time, we also know how to have fun with it, and how to turn sometimes frustrating experiences into teaching and learning and laughing moments.”
The student employees have tried to maintain that level of camaraderie and community even as they’re working apart, either from their on-campus apartments or at home waiting out the pandemic with their families.
“We definitely have each other as people to rely on,” Griffin says, noting a “Hangout Zone” created in Microsoft Teams where agents can jump over to socialize when they’re not on a support call. The students have also organized movie nights, watching together and streaming through one screen; playing multiplayer Jackbox Games together; and even developing PowerPoint presentations for each other to explain their stance on a random topic. One example: “Why my favorite color is green.”
“It’s a huge priority right now, just to find joy and humor,” Griffin says. “We’re really trying to make it seem like one big community, as much as we can.”
As a senior, Griffin maintains a positive outlook on the hard left turn his last semester at UW–Madison has taken, but he also acknowledges it’s been a hard pill to swallow.
“When I left campus before spring break and said goodbye to some of my co-workers walking out of the Help Desk, I jokingly said, ‘If I don’t see you again, it’s been great knowing you!’” Griffin recalls. “Well, I’m going to do my best to make sure that wasn’t the very last time we see each other in person. That’s one of the hardest things to reconcile with right now.”
But even as he mourns some of the rites of passage and experiences lost in his senior year, Griffin chooses not to dwell on the negative.
“It’s moments like these, when we face these big challenges, we really find out the amazing things we can do.”
Photo, above: Pre-pandemic, DoIT student employees at work. Pictured: Joe Knoelke, Bailey Conradt, Eric Maccoux, Andrew Goethel, Sophie Kallas, Leah Kreiter, Connie Terlizzi, Celine Lu, Pedro Henrique Goulart, Gabe Sepulveda.