KloudGem Blog
KloudGem picks up where the job of your IT Help Desk ends:
💎 we consult with your users or teams to smooth out or reimagine their workflows within the Google Workspace ecosystem,
AND
💎 as necessary also work with them and your IT Team to provide custom-tailored training and company-specific guidance,
so that your IT Team and your company can reap the intended cost- and productivity benefits of working in Google Workspace.
When it comes to measuring your IT Help Desk's effectiveness, we believe that we need to look at it 2 ways:
🛠️ Fixing issues
⚙️ Thinking through workflows
Traditionally, metrics only look at the first.
For the former, the more traditional metrics work well: how fast was the person able to solve a technical issue, how many times a user had to contact the Help Desk.
For the latter, a simple fix-it-quickly approach is not going to work: there, you need your consultant to be able to put themselves in the user's shoes, really understand what they are trying to accomplish, and be their problem-solving ally. This requires a very different type of skill set. It requires an operations expert. And it cannot be measured with the traditional Help Desk KPIs.
Working in Google files speeds up collaborations, but IT departments need to be keenly aware of any Microsoft office/file usage needs across your organization. Why? Because unbeknownst to you, there could be segments in the organization who need them for reasons outside of their or your control, perhaps because of file format requirements from outside agencies, working with outside partners, legacy files, etc.
When this needs arises, it is advisable to deeply understand the why and the constraints. If it's just a preference, then sure, you can encourage Google tool use, but beyond that, if there is a specific non-negotiable need (as mentioned above), they might be experiencing file corruption issues when they use Google Drive's native compatibility feature that translates Microsoft files into the Google format. If this will inevitably cause dissatisfaction with the IT tools and IT's support, as well as #ITcost for your company in storage. Because, likely, people will start uploading and downloading Microsoft files, perhaps even emailing them instead of sharing, creating multiples of the same, resulting in increased storage costs and slowdown in productivity due to version control. And when the dissatisfied voices get louder about Google tools, it's hard to mitigate the damage.
So why not provide solutions instead? Consultations can ensure that those who need it, have Microsoft Office, and can use it in conjunction with Google Drive: raise awareness about how to store files in Google Drive, and share best practices for when to use Google Drive via Chrome vs. Google Drive for Desktop for natively editing Microsoft files.
Be or provide consultative guidance to your users so they can comply with IT's requirements and still get their work done.
One of the reasons you moved your company to GoogleWorkspace is to save on storage: by teams accessing the same file, instead of keeping various versions, everyone wins: smoother and faster collaboration for your users and cost savings for the company. However, expecting your users to define and establish document management best practices for themselves and their teams will undermine your digital transformation efforts.
Without guidance, users will interact with Google files the way they used to with offline files, and this will only lead to duplication of content and version control issues -- as well as significantly increased storage costs on the IT side (both in Gmail and in Google Drive). Added to this, there are bound to be file ownership and access issues when people leave the company or move between teams.
Without a shared strategy, there will be confusion about where to look for files. And user confusion always ends up in increased IT tickets.
How can you avoid it? Seek cross-functional alignment on document management strategy, with input from IT, Legal, Operations, and User teams. Then communicate the strategy to your user teams, and train your users on the guidance, strategy, and best practices. Get help from an expert who can tailor the content.
Provide opportunities for your users and their teams to have access to workflow consultations with a Google Workspace expert. Your people will thank you for it, and you can avoid unwelcome cost increase.
We all know that user feedback is important, but it should not be a 1x or 2x a year survey. As an IT Team, you want to make sure that you have set up channels through which you can be in continuous communication with your users about the tools that are deployed to your company – and not just for Google tools. I see that in many places, IT is perceived to be this department that imposes rules about how to work and what to work with. I believe that it is in IT's power to change that view. IT needs to be and can be a trusted partner in facilitating work for all employees. Unaddressed dissatisfaction with the tools and/or IT may undermine all your technical efforts of your Google Workspace rollout. When the grumbling starts about people not being able to use the tools effectively, it is not just their problem, it is your problem as IT. If the tools are perceived to be ineffective for day-to-day work, it can be costly, not only because the company as a whole is not as productive as it could be, but you could be forced to migrate back to your old systems despite you as IT Team knowing full well that Google Workspace is better for collaboration and productivity.
So what can you do? Open up channels to listen to concerns, not just in the form of a written feedback survey, but also allow for users to reach out in person to someone. And really listen. Once you get the feedback, record it, aggregate it, and assess it: you will likely find that an issue is either one that consultations and training or some easy tweaks can fix, or you'll need to partner with the users and look for software solutions for them or build them. Aggregating the information coming from your users, and aggregating and assessing the data coming in through different channels will be a key element. And don't forget to circle back to users so they know you heard them and are working with them.
Depending on your IT Help Desk to optimize operations and workflows for the employees typically doesn't work. It's not their job; neither are they usually trained for it. Their job is to make sure that tech issues are fixed. Expecting them to consult with users on their or their teams' day-to-day workflows is setting the up for failure and will lead to dissatisfaction with IT and the tools they deployed.
While it is not your IT Help Desk's job to come up with team and individual processes and workflows, optimize them, or translate your legacy system's workflows into the #GoogleWorkspace world, you can still facilitate them: allow the users to have access to consultations with an expert.
Part of software rollout is of course training, but generic, cookie-cutter training for your users just doesn't cut it. Not only will your employees not remember what they learned, but they won't be able to use the tools well for their specific business needs, because effective learning takes place when there is a need where the learning can be immediately applied.
Your users need to only know about tools and features of tools that are enabled for your organization (avoid overwhelm). At the same time, they also need to know about policies that are not necessarily visible to them, yet can affect their work or are expectations that they need to conform to. One example of such an area is external sharing: most people want to do what's best for their organization, so communicating safe information sharing best practices and related behavioral expectations can make your users allies of your IT Security Team.
With this post we are starting a series of posts about expensive mistakes that companies can make when rolling out Google Workspace, and we'll share ways you can avoid the pitfalls.
These are the areas we'll address:
🤸🏻 Training
💻 IT Support
📢 Feedback
🗃️ Storage
🔗 Microsoft and Google Tools
✅ IT KPIs
