Help Desk Manager

College of Southern Maryland • La Plata, MD

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

Located 45 minutes from the Nation’s Capital, nestled in a history-rich community of southern Maryland, The College of Southern Maryland (CSM) is a two-time Aspen Award-winning institution (top 15% of Community Colleges) with academic programs in over 100 disciplines. CSM is among America’s top 100 producers of Minority Associate Degrees in twenty categories, according to Diverse Issues in Higher Education. CSM offers excellent health insurance benefits; State Retirement Pension plan; wellness programs; Code Green early closure Fridays in the summer; college closure for spring break and several major holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year; and for several days in March for Spring Break. We are an innovative institution committed to student success and well known for our flexibility to meet student and community needs. The Help Desk Manager plays a pivotal role in the successful operation of the Information Management and Technology (IMT) Division’s Help Desk. This position is responsible for leading a team of technicians, providing excellent customer service along with operational and technical support for service request resolution and incident response, ensuring alignment with the organization's goals and objectives. The Help Desk Manager drives operational and technology alignment and leads a diverse customer service team to ensure the alignment of technology support to business needs through strict ticket resolution, queue management, standardized triage workflows, and SLA metric tracking. The individual in this position provides leadership in the planning and scheduling of the technology support team and is responsible for leading Help Desk-related initiatives that strengthen campus-wide IT services. The Help Desk Manager provides leadership in key areas of IT operations and ensures IT organizational effectiveness. This position is responsible and accountable for providing comprehensive KPI reporting. The Help Desk Manager completes performance evaluations for the Help Desk Team, including IMT Temps. Reports to: Technology Services Coordinator The hiring salary for this position will be from the min to mid-point of the salary range advertised . This position is open until filled.

Requirements

• Associate’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Educational Technology, or related (or) 3 years’ experience in a customer support capacity within an IT organization.
• One or more years leading a highly motivated, dynamic team.
• Three or more years of successful experience in Information Technology and/or a closely aligned field.
• Strong technical troubleshooting skills
• Experience configuring, supporting and troubleshooting Windows OS
• Experience supporting and troubleshooting video conference solutions such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom
• Strong understanding of Microsoft 365 suite of applications
• Strong leadership and management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to successfully lead day-to-day Help Desk operations in a high-performing organization, including queue management and metric tracking.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with a talent for de-escalating frustrated stakeholders.
• Demonstrated experience in team building and collaborative problem-solving abilities.
• Ability to work with all levels of college personnel including executive staff.
• Knowledge of IT management, Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and ITIL incident frameworks.

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor’s degree preferred.
• Relevant certifications such as CompTia A+, HDI, ITIL, or similar are highly desirable.

Responsibilities

• Apply the IT Priority & Severity Matrix to objectively classify tickets (P1-P4) and meet targeted response and resolution SLAs.
• Resolves service requests immediately via telephone or assigns as work orders for timely action.
• Escalates service requests to Network/Projects team (third level) when necessary.
• Enforce strict escalation thresholds, ensuring that Tier 1 tickets are effectively "packaged" with proper documentation before being handed off.
• Collaborate with other IMT departments to ensure timely ticket resolution and provide customer feedback to the appropriate internal teams, ie Network/Cyber Security.
• Manage Help Desk team and evaluate their performance utilizing data from daily metric reviews and SLA tracking.
• Lead high-energy, daily morning stand-up huddles to address system health, overnight outages, staffing coverage, and daily priorities.
• Actively manage the ticket queue, ensuring unassigned tickets are promptly routed and monitoring for "stale" tickets to prevent bottlenecks.
• Develop daily, weekly and monthly reports on help desk team’s productivity and use this data to justify staffing needs and track success.
• Serve as primary escalation point for service requests and incidents.
• Conduct regular Quality Assurance (QA) reviews by sampling closed tickets and calls to monitor technical accuracy and customer service tone.
• Provide "micro-coaching" and continuous feedback loops to frontline staff to maintain high service standards.
• Develop and implement plans, processes, and procedures for the Information Technology Services help desk, including standardized triage logic flows (e.g., the "5 to 10-Minute Rule") to train staff on resolving issues quickly.
• Recruit, train and support Help Desk representatives and technicians, ensuring they are proficient in utilizing and developing the Knowledge Base (KB).
• Assist in developing and maintaining proper documentation for desktop computing resources and help develop and document solutions to common user issues and concerns.
• Maintain timely and accurate customer service on a daily basis by establishing best practices through the entire technical support process.
• Handle direct requests and escalations from department heads, Deans, and VIPs, ensuring proactive de-escalation and relationship management.
• Draft and distribute campus-wide communications regarding system outages, upcoming maintenance, or critical P1 incidents.
• Contribute to improving customer support by actively responding to queries and handling complaints.
• Ensure a smooth transition of services by managing the End-of-Day (EOD) Handover Checklist and preventing overnight ticket backlog.
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Benefits

• excellent health insurance benefits
• State Retirement Pension plan
• wellness programs
• Code Green early closure Fridays in the summer
• college closure for spring break
• college closure for several major holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year
• college closure for several days in March for Spring Break

What This Job Offers

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