Spare a thought for your IT Technician!
This month I thought it would be appropriate to write about the life of an IT Technician working with schools. In many cases at this time of year, schools are considering the renewal or replacement of their IT support contracts. I would like to start off by asking, please spare a thought for the IT Technician who has been allocated to your school.
Over the years throughout my journey and speaking to many different people at conferences and IT exhibitions etc, I’ve heard so many complaints about IT tech support and their inability to understand the needs of the schools they are working with. Please consider the following unknown points from the side of the IT technician.
The technicians are only there to fix things, the contracts that they are working under means they are only there as a fire fighting solution. The future development of the technology in school is 100% reliant on the vision and planning from the school leadership working closely with the IT development manager or customer relationship manager of the IT company. Therefore the technicians in many cases aren’t involved with the strategic plan of the school moving forward. This is further exacerbated by the fact that the IT company has a preferred set of solutions that work for them as a business which holds the school back without anything ever changing. The end result with the vicious cycle highlighted above is that many IT technicians feel undervalued or that nobody listens to their point of view. This leads to them looking very uninterested and becoming quite obstructive in their approach to new ways of working. I am proud to say that I have had the opportunity to speak to technicians such as this and in return there’s been further discussions with the senior leaders in school to encourage a change of mindset to help make a difference.
Another very common scenario, especially in Secondary Schools is the Windows server & client set up that senior network managers or technicians love so much as it’s all they know and do not want to change. Whenever they are asked by the school about a different way of doing things they become the biggest barrier to change and present any excuse they can so the decision makers won’t pursue these possible changes any further.
The way to resolve all of these issues is to adopt a wider approach to include everyone in the IT vision and plan. Talk to the technicians, listen to what they have to say with every possible consideration that needs to be made towards all IT Solutions, not just the things that have created the endless series of fire fighting. Let’s aim to make the on site time spent by technicians more proactive rather than reactive.
As you approach the renewal date of your IT support contract, take into account all factors that you feel need to be addressed. Ask challenging questions and don’t be afraid to ask for new ways to do things. Most importantly, don’t disregard your IT technicians, they are often a lot more enthusiastic than you may realise.
Nigel Milligan
IT Director.
