Being a member of an IT help desk team can be rewarding, but it’s also challenging and stressful at times. It’s important to be proactive about managing and increasing morale, so you can keep employees happy, productive, and satisfied with their position.
Fortunately, some of the best strategies for accomplishing this are both inexpensive and accessible.
How to Boost Morale in an IT Help Team
These are some of the best ways to improve morale in an IT help team – and keep it high – in your IT help team.
- Choose the right software. A good IT help desk platform can instantly make the average agent’s job easier and less stressful. If the platform is easy to use and intuitive, they’ll have no problem learning and actively using its core features. If it’s full of helpful information and guides, they’ll have an easier time helping customers find resolutions. And if there are convenient, readily accessible communication channels, every conversation will flow more smoothly. IT help desk platforms aren’t always cheap or easy to integrate, but with the right set of features and selling points, they can make a huge difference in your IT help team’s performance and morale.
- Streamline communications. Better communication makes everyone’s lives easier. Your help desk team will be faster, more efficient, and less stressed, and on top of that, they’ll arrange faster resolutions for customers. Improve communication with better tools and guidelines (such as emphasizing clarity and conciseness) for the best results here.
- Provide better education and training. Set your employees up for success. Team members tend to be happier and more fulfilled when they’re provided with adequate education and training for their position. Don’t let them struggle in unnecessary ignorance.
- Start the day on a positive note. Each day, try to start on a positive note – regardless of what happened the previous day. Even simple things, like reading motivational quotes or telling jokes, can make a difference for the better.
- Acknowledge challenges with empathy. Conflict resolution and management are empowered by empathy. When you truly feel what your employees feel, and you’re willing to work with them on the challenges they face, you’ll find faster paths to acceptable resolutions. Your IT team members will at least occasionally experience stress, frustration, and difficulty doing their jobs; it’s your job to support them with compassion and understanding. When you acknowledge these challenges proactively and make your team feel heard and understood, the stress of the job will start to melt away.
- Visualize and celebrate milestones. What are your goals for the team? How can you track their progress? Intuitively visualizing and celebrating milestones is one of the best ways to keep morale high. Use charts, graphs, and fun illustrations to help your IT help team keep track of closed tickets, resolved issues, and other metrics – and when you hit your biggest goals, celebrate with a meal, a teambuilding activity, or some other creative reward.
- Reward your best employees. Speaking of rewards, go out of your way to publicly recognize your best performers. Trophies, cash bonuses, and extra privileges (like time off) can immediately validate this employee’s efforts and make them feel better about their place in this organization. Even better, public recognition can motivate other IT help desk employees to work more productively.
- Maintain a relaxed environment. Different workplaces have different types of culture to maintain, but for the most part, IT help desk workers are less stressed and more comfortable in relaxed environments. Low lights, soft music, and lenient rules can all lead to a more inviting, less stressful environment for your employees. Obviously, you don’t want them dozing off on the job – but you also don’t need them to be unnecessarily anxious.
- Cater to individuals (when possible). Every individual is different, so cater to those individual needs whenever you can. If one member of your team likes short, but frequent breaks, but another likes longer, less frequent breaks, try to accommodate both. You’ll end up making everyone happier this way.
- Collect feedback (and act on it). Finally, make it a point to conduct regular employee surveys. Get a read on the pulse of your IT help desk team and figure out what (if anything) is holding them back from higher morale. The better you understand them, the better you can help them.
Finding the Right Combination
Not all teams – and certainly not all individuals – think and feel the same way. A strategy that works in one setting may fall flat in another, and some of the tactics you thought would be revolutionary could end up fizzling when introduced. It’s on you to experiment and find the best combination of morale-boosting efforts for your team in your business.
