The team has pulled together very well and we are supporting each other as much as possible. I have some new team members and it great to see the rest of the team making sure they are supported.
I work in Information Technology and Digital Services (ITDS), and I'm very proud to manage the teams responsible for delivering frontline IT support to colleagues, students and external stakeholders.
We are responsible for running the IT Help service, resolving issues and maintaining, replacing and upgrading all University computers. We also maintain the security of our IT systems and management and deploy all software to our users.
Not needing to travel each day is the biggest change.
Dealing with requests from colleagues and students who are adjusting to working remotely.
I manage a diverse portfolio. The most important element of my job is to understand the changes to workload and use that data to help the team provide the best support possible. This may involve looking at resources or requesting support from the wider team to create training materials as an example.
I'm doing well. I have my family around me to keep me mentally strong. Home schooling is a new challenge but we are coping quite well with it, although I'm not sure who is teaching who!
The team has pulled together very well and we are supporting each other as much as possible. I have some new team members and it great to see the rest of the team making sure they are supported.
It's important to be part of Team Teesside. We can achieve greater things when we work together and support each other.
The University has pulled together and ITDS has been involved in many projects to enable colleagues to carry on working. We've also looked at how we can help people in the wider community and offered support to those suffering from the devastating effects of COVID-19.
The IT Help Team is working normally. Obviously we can't deal with walk-in support but we can deal with all email and phone queries as normal. Given the quick change needed the team have responded very well to the challenge.
We have invested in software that allows the team to remote onto our customers' computers and mobile devices and it's been invaluable to us.
We've been extremely busy ever since social distancing was introduced, especially in the first couple of weeks. We've handled around almost 850 calls and about 2800 emails, as well as deploying 160 laptops to colleagues to allow them to work at home safely. I'm very proud of my team and what we've accomplished.
Please be sensible and keep safe. The IT Team is here to support you as much as possible.
Weirdly enough, seeing the office again. Otherwise it's going for a curry mmmmmm :)