Shining a light on Hillcrest’s heroes: IT
Next up to take centre stage under our Hillcrest heroes spotlight is a department that tends to work behind the curtain, but whose efforts and expertise are essential in enabling the organisation to function. Introducing, Hillcrest’s IT team!
The onset of the lockdown required a very rapid change from our usual office environment to having systems set up to allow as many of the staff to work from home as possible. While we’ve always had remote working capability, with a significant number of people now locked down at home, it had to be scaled up drastically and in a very short space of time.
The IT service desk team quickly prepared devices ready to be sent home with staff, while also helping staff that were using their own devices to connect remotely and iron out any issues. In the first few weeks of lockdown, the volume of support calls that the IT service desk took was enormous. Meanwhile, the applications team pushed through multiple system changes to support the organisation’s new way of working, including quickly developing a paper free approach to invoicing for the finance team.
As the whole organisation adjusted to the challenges of lockdown, IT requests rolled in on a daily basis. The team also set up wireless networks in some Hillcrest Futures projects to allow service users to stay in contact with family and friends. As each area of Hillcrest rose to the challenges of lockdown, IT was there behind the scenes ensuring they were able to pull it all off.
It hasn’t all been about change however. With the lockdown coming at the end of the financial year which is one of the busiest times for IT support, the team still had to work through the usual work that was required. This included a range of tasks from running end of year financial debits, to undertaking major software upgrades, and even the roll-out of the new IT service desk software.
IT manager Mark Flattery said: “The team has been absolutely brilliant throughout this period by providing a gold service, a willingness to help and a mind-set to deliver fantastic results. The chief executive and senior management have been delighted with the efforts and professionalism of the team, so we’d like to congratulate them and offer a great big thank you – you have played a blinder!”