Field Support Team Lead at Shoprite Group of Companies

Incident management and support:

• Drive overall team efficiency in providing support (problem analysis and resolution) services for complex end-user problems, and ensure the team understands all incident management and support processes.
• Ensure overall team adherence to service standards (i.e., incident prioritization), and service level agreements.
• Oversee and/or efficiently manage overall team activities relating to escalation to 3rd level support teams and vendors.
• Monitor and manage reported incidents and ensure fair work/incident allocation to the team via the applicable IT Service Management system and the delivery of incident resolutions within SLA timelines.
• Provide oversight and guidance on the team’s collaborative efforts and participation with relevant internal stakeholders including technology partner/3rd party escalated incidents.
• Manage the overall set-up, configuration, and installation of endpoint devices according to Shoprite IT standards i.e., enforce adherence to installation and configuration guides, security of end point data, etc.

Team Leadership: 

• Provide technical leadership, team coaching and mentorship for the IT field support team to ensure high competence and delivery of individual and team output, removing impediments and ensuring the team is motivated to achieve individual and collective objectives.
• Maintain high standards of IT field support by establishing good practice and cohesiveness within 
• the team.
• Ensure the IT field support team is adequately resourced to efficiently deliver tasks, identifying,and encouraging areas of growth and/or improvement.
• Initiate or participate in team capacity and resource planning, staff requisition and recruitment processes, including new team member onboarding and individual development plans.
• Manage work schedules and prioritization, including attendance, leave, overtime and standby schedules within the team.
• Partner with relevant internal teams (i.e., People Team) to increase team performance, drive training and knowledge sharing for and within the team.

Projects, new store openings, and vendor engagements:

• Monitor and manage all work requests (i.e., escalations for FS Engineers, projects) for the team.
• Support business requirements for new store openings/projects and manage all technical elements pertaining to field support processes including placing orders for user / store equipment and peripherals. 
• Coordinate various processes before field support onsite installation such as the availability of all IT equipment, appropriate software installations and testing of IT equipment is included in Staging schedule.
• Provide regular progress reports to relevant stakeholders on all IT field support deliverables and escalate any delays on scheduled installations.
• Plan and manage all IT field support team deliverables for rollout and new store projects, including appropriate handover points processes.
• Manage projects within the scope of the field support team ensuring collaboration with relevant business stakeholders and teams.
• Manage/Oversee IT infrastructure support vendors (i.e., cabling, UPS, Voice, Data, end point 
• installations), and drive efficiency in their delivery of support services on projects and/or infrastructure maintenance.
• Plan, develop and manage training and training materials for 1st line support teams pertaining to effective application incident troubleshooting and resolution.

Reporting:

• Report to management on IT field support team overall performance, projects, and vendor engagements according to agreed standards and timelines, providing recommendations on support improvements based on incident/queries data.

Qualifications

• Grade 12 / Matric – (essential)
• Degree/Diploma in IT, Software Development, Information Systems, Systems Support or related field -(essential). OR Proven track record of leading and managing teams on complex projects - (essential).
• A+, N+, MCSE certification or industry relevant qualification – (essential).
• Project Management Foundation Certification - (desired).

Experience

• 3+ years’ experience in a Team Lead capacity with demonstrable experience leading and managing an IT field support team delivery pertaining to resolving IT incidents relating to system hardware and networking and roll out projects - (essential).
• Solid experience with specific exposure to mentoring and coaching a team, providing technical leadership, and driving high performance within the context of IT field support - (essential).