Application Support Director

Holmes Murphy Insurance • West Des Moines, IA

3d • Onsite

About The Position

We are looking to add a Application Support Director to join our IT team in West Des Moines, Iowa. Offering a forward-thinking, innovative, and vibrant company culture, along with the opportunity to share your unique potential, there really is no place like Holmes!

Basic Function:
The purpose of this position is to lead the Brokerage Services Application Services team, ensuring effective administration, support, operational health, and performance of applications critical to Brokerage Services business functions. This role partners closely with Business Operations, Delivery teams, IT Support and IT Operations to coordinate issue resolution, support application upgrades, monitor service health, identify systemic issues and trends, and drive continuous improvement initiatives that improve application stability, user experience, and business value.

Requirements

• Associate degree or a minimum of 5 years of experience in related field
• 7+ years of IT industry experience
• Proven ability to lead a team, with a focus on application management and support.
• Experience with Agile/Scrum and Waterfall project methodologies and practices preferred.
• Align with organizational core values.
• Ability to act in the liaison role, between business stakeholders, vendors, and Enterprise teams.
• Substantial exposure to data processing, hardware platforms, enterprise software applications and outsourced systems.
• Ability and willingness to consistently participate in internal and external educational opportunities to enhance knowledge of current insurance topics or relevant system improvements.
• Ability and willingness to pursue a technical designation and/or continuing education, as appropriate.
• Excellent analytical, planning, organizational and technical and skills
• Displays intellectual curiosity and integrity.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
• Problem-solving mentality leveraging internal and/or external resources, where and when needed, to do what’s right for the customer, partner and for HMA.
• Ability to be available for work on a daily basis and extended hours as necessary.
• Ability to apply common sense understanding to carry out instructions furnished in written, oral or diagram form. Ability to deal with problems involving several concrete variables in standardized situations.
• Ability to exert up to 10 pounds of force occasionally, and/or negligible amount of force frequently or constantly to lift, carry, push, or pull objects.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with Agile/Scrum and Waterfall project methodologies and practices

Responsibilities

• Lead teams responsible for application administration, access management, configuration support, and operational support of business applications.
• Establish and maintain processes for issue intake, triage, escalation, and resolution.
• Ensure timely and effective support for business users experiencing application issues.
• Partner with vendors and technical support organizations as needed to resolve application issues.
• Lead operational readiness activities associated with application upgrades and major changes.
• Serve as the primary technology liaison to Business Operations and the IT Application Service Team.
• Develop strong partnerships with business stakeholders to understand operational needs, system challenges, and service expectations.
• Ensure clear communication regarding production issues, application health, planned upgrades, and support activities.
• Collaborate closely with Delivery Management and development teams to coordinate defect resolution, upgrades, enhancements, and production support activities.
• Provide operational input regarding application performance, support trends, and business impacts to help prioritize future improvements.
• Partner with Delivery teams to remain informed of project roadmaps, planned enhancements, technology modernization efforts, and upcoming solution implementations to proactively evaluate support needs, operational impacts, and application service readiness.
• Monitor and report on application availability, service performance, and system stability.
• Drive initiatives that improve application reliability, support effectiveness, and user experience.
• Lead and motivate team by ensuring right talent is in the right role for the success of the organization, which may include hiring and terminating employees.
• Coach and counsel team members on areas such as workflow, process and procedure, customer service and client consulting.
• Prepare and conduct performance feedback that defines future goals and objectives and hold employees accountable.
• Foster a high-performance culture by supporting career development and advancement for team members.
• Responsible for timesheet management, including responding to PTO/RTO requests and approving timesheets.
• Participate in compensation decisions for team members, as applicable.
• Facilitate regularly scheduled meetings to foster teamwork.
• Attend team and enterprise meetings, as well as leadership training opportunities offered internally and externally.
• Coordinate initial and ongoing training with Growth & Development and team members on established processes and procedures.
• Support and maintain standardized processes to ensure efficient and effective quality service according to established quality guidelines.
• Provide backup assistance for team members, as necessary.
• Collaborate with business leaders, department heads, and other IT teams to understand and address technology needs.
• Stay abreast of industry trends and emerging technologies.
• Performs special projects and other duties as requested.
• Develop and maintain dashboards, scorecards, and executive reporting related to application health and support performance.
• Monitor and report on support metrics and operational performance trends.
• Analyze recurring issues, support trends, and operational risks to identify opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Recommend and support process, service, and operational enhancements that improve efficiency and user satisfaction.

Benefits

• health, dental and vision
• Paid Parental Leave and supportive New Parent Benefits
• Company paid continuing Education & Tuition Reimbursement
• 401k Profit Sharing
• Generous time off practices in addition to paid holidays
• Supportive of community efforts with paid Volunteer time off and employee matching gifts to charities that are important to you
• Inclusion & Belonging Programs
• Consistent merit increase and promotion opportunities
• Discretionary bonus opportunity

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: Associate degree