end-users, management, & IT

Vogon Poet

Would like to get some thoughts about the following questions from anyone who has worked in IT in mid- to large institutions. (I'm talking to an HR friend about revamping performance standards)

What percentage of end-users in your organization would you say are not competent enough in using their OS or applications?
Are individuals ever identified to management?
Does management support training on deficiencies?


I think I know how this will play out, but I'd like to hear your comments anyway.

newbiext

Vogon Poet wrote:

What percentage of end-users in your organization would you say are not competent enough in using their OS or applications?.

I'd say like 40%...though sometimes my users suprise me with their problems...lol

Vogon Poet wrote:

Are individuals ever identified to management?

Management reviews the helpdesk support call log.

Vogon Poet wrote:

Does management support training on deficiencies?

Sadly they do across the board training, e.g new application we train you how to use it to be productive once, so new employees are sometimes left in the dark.

Daniel333

OS - XP, 80% qualified.

Applications - veries by application, I support 8 apps. The enterprise supports about 120 applications. But I would say 50% are unqualified to use the applications we have around as a general rule.

Are individuals ever identified to management? - Yes and no. Highly political situation here. But general rule of most places it seems, blame will goto the IT professional well before it goes to the user. Sometimes in a valid way too.

Does management support training on deficiencies? - Never.

Smallguy

I'd say about 40% are not qualified to use their apps or XP.... but I do not think some of these people care they just go in punch their hours and leave.

they just can't even attempt to work though something a color changes and you've installed the wrong program or the shortcut is not on their desktop so the program is not installed kindda users

management where I am is pretty good for training one company even has lunch and learn sessions taught by dept heads on issues that users request which I thought was great. or some of the more wealthy companies will uses a webX session

most of the users I support are far from idiots and are quite innovative (if I'm busy and can't hlep for 30-40 minutes they still find away to do it) they just panic if anything is different and call IT.


but some of that comes from not knowing or were poorly trained form the get go (a big issue when soemone with litle experience is jsut given a job and left to figure it out), another part is "well it;s not my job IT has to make it work perfectly"

We are able to bring problem users to our manager and he addresses them on an as needed basis.. for companies that call after hours a lot then are sometimes charge more for the support they receive come next contract or told you need to train X cause they call everyday for password resets

one thing that will always baffles me is why users don;t seem to try and learn more... but maybe it is just my personality wanting to know even a little about different roles

iowatech

one thing that will always baffles me is why users don;t seem to try and learn more...

Unfortunately cattle can't carve new paths. ;_;

Smallguy

iowatech wrote:

one thing that will always baffles me is why users don;t seem to try and learn more...

Unfortunately cattle can't carve new paths. ;_;

yeah I guess your right

even things completly un-related to what I do I liek ot understand.... or understand why a decission was made

some items it drives me nutz being given a task knowing what the ultimate result is gonna be in my head but not being given the whole picture

or those late afternoon I need you to do something completely crazy and u'll understand in about 30 minutes