Service Desk Executive at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)

Job Title: Service Desk Executive

Role Overview

• Under the direct supervision of the Principal Officer, Operations, Infrastructure and Maintenance, the incumbent will be responsible for overseeing and managing the day-to-day activities of ECOWAS IT Service Desk which provides front line Incident and Request Management, resolve issues with computer technologies, optimize IT Systems, communicate with users and resolve technical issues and ensure that ECOWAS staff are able to utilize the IT systems and software across all IT services in the Commission. 
• The role ensures that all incidents and service requests are handled effectively across all channels within agreed Service Levels to deliver user satisfaction. 
• He/She will develop and implement strategies, standards, and procedures within which the Service Desk and other related Service Desks will operate using Service Desk tools, ECOWAS website and Knowledge Base. 
• He/She will analyse usage of applications, incidents, and requests to identify problems and proactively reduce call volumes.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Follow up on user-satisfaction issues and user-feedback responses. 
• Review any negative feedback or concerns users have raised as a part of the post-ticket satisfaction survey.
• Monitor incoming service-desk tickets to understand broad trends and identify dependencies that Help Desk Operators cannot see when working on an individual ticket.
• Responsible for managing a team who provides first- and second-line technical support services, Co-ordinate the team to investigate problems, implement solutions and take appropriate preventive measures.
• Analyze the impact of new services or changes to services on the Service Desk and develop solutions as appropriate to provide services including resourcing, hours of service, skills transfer, development of the knowledge base etc.
• Define the requirements for Service Desk tools and ensure, through the relevant technical support area, that the tools are maintained to meet the required standards of service. This includes service desk tool instances provided as a service to other business units at ECOWAS.
• Manage daily Help Desk operations including governance of outsourced vendors providing Tier I support. 
• Responsible for guidance, assistance, coordination, and follow-up on client inquiries, escalations, problem reports, and the identification and resolution of reported problems in the clinical system and related supporting applications and infrastructure
• Initiate, manage and participate in Helpdesk and end users support projects, including automation implementation and online self-service catalog development.
• Participate in Helpdesk contract negotiations; review and edit amendments working with the ECOWAS contract management team.
• Drive proactive service measures — reducing status calls by implementing practices to manage end users’ expectations and redirect to online catalog status, drive password resets to online tool.
• Perform data analytics on call data and initiate, implement, and drive helpdesk optimization efforts.
• Monitor client requests to identify systematic trends and develop action plans to address. 
• Create, review, evaluate, and prepare periodic performance reports.
• Maintain a high level of Service Desk customer focus by prioritizing issues and communicating appropriately with external and internal customers.
• Apply strategic thinking to provide the best service for the end user.
• Draft the Service Desk strategy to drive the shifting of incidents and requests to more efficient and faster resolution processes and design a flexible and robust service.
• Address SLA areas of concern. 
• Evaluate IT service requests approaching or exceeding their SLAs and adjust staff priorities.
• Help to evaluate and establish requirements for the implementation of changes by setting policy and standards translate ‘lessons learnt’ from complaint cycles into continual service improvement.
• Monitor the performance of the Service Desk through the development of SLAs and KPI’s and report against them on a regular basis, as required by senior management.
• Proactively identify mediums for ensuring that daily, weekly, and monthly statistics, status reports, and other reporting requests are maintained and available as requested.
• Work with existing reporting and analytics tools to monitor Service Desk performance, identify, and address areas of potential performance issues, and monitor key performance indicators.
• Work with projects to interpret requirements from changes to service or new services and develop support documentation for non-technical users and the Service Desk analysts.
• Manage contractual SLAs. 
• Run month-end reports to derive monthly contacts. 
• Manage Help desk financials, invoices, and service level tracking.
• Review operational metrics and reports throughout each day to adjust staffing and workflows as needed to optimize service desk performance.
• Ensure user service excellence by monitoring tickets and reviewing customer feedback.
• Define the requirements for Service Desk tools and ensure, through the relevant technical support area, that the tools are maintained to meet the required standards of service. This includes service desk tool instances provided as a service to other business units at ECOWAS.
• Establish working schedules, manage time off to ensure appropriate coverage for operating workloads and task allocations in accordance with contractual requirements.
• Develop, gain agreement to, own and maintain the Incident, Critical Incident and ServiceRequest processes (ITIL) and procedures, ensuring procedures are followed, including reviews and problem analysis.
• Own the knowledge base tool and develop IT Services policies and procedures for its effective use, including review and compliance.
• Provide communication between the IT Department and users during incidents, planned outages and upgrades, using an array of channels and mediums.
• Manage the Service Desk presence on ECOWAS web sites.
• Shift workloads among resources throughout the day.
• Track, log and correct information to protect assets and components.
• Create and maintain dashboard reports, as needed. 
• Trend data and suggest proactive measures and service improvements based on analytics.
• Serve as central point of contact for support-related service, end-user escalations and inquiries. 
• Manage operational activities, including general staffing activities, such as hiring, training, budgeting, scheduling, and conducting performance reviews.
• Responsible for the resourcing and development of the team, including the preparation and co-ordination of service transition activities.
• Ensure that the support team undertakes development so that they can advise on future projects and current issues.
• Ensure recruitment, performance management, training, career development programs, succession planning, resource planning and HR processes are being managed across the Services Desk.
• Develop cross-team and cross-departmental expertise necessary to effectively respond to issues.
• Perform periodic review and evaluation of all employees, managing necessary performance issues, and training requirements, as necessary for the development of individual resources as a team.
• Ensure the Service Desk maintains a high level of responsiveness, communication, professionalism, and overall staff knowledge.
• Ensure the Service Desk staff is appropriately staffed, skilled, and trained to deliver excellent technical support and customers.
• Review current major incidents, scheduled outages, and business events for the day to assess any adjustments to staffing plans.
• Plan resources to meet demand.
• Provide occasional out-of-hours support.
• Perform any other duties as may be required from time to time.

Academic Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree (or equivalent) in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Business Systems Analysis & Design, Information Systems Management, or any related ICT field from a recognized University.
• Minimum of five (5) years’ previous experience managing technical or service Helpdesk
• Experience in IT development, implementation and maintenance of information and communication technologies.
• Having a Level 3 service management framework qualification will be an added advantage.
• Demonstrate knowledge of the life cycle or capability elements of ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library)
• Ability to manage financial Helpdesk administration, including managing a multi-million-dollar budget, invoices, and contractual service level requirements/penalties.
• Knowledge and management of support venues, including self-service, chat, boots, etc.
• Strong leadership, consultative and communication skills, analytical ability, decisiveness, judgment, and the ability to work effectively with end users, IT, staff, and manage vendors.
• Previous experience with vendor governance, management, and contractual operations

Age Limit:

• Be below 50 years old. 
• This provision does not apply to internal candidates.

Ecowas Key Competencies:

• Ability to persuade/influence others to consider a certain point of view, adopt a new idea or implement new methods and practices.
• Ability to lead a team of trainees/junior staff and instill a spirit of teamwork to engage employees and achieve a well-defined set of activities.
• Ability to respect chain of command in an appropriate manner.
• Ability to resolve challenges that occur with minimal direction and/or to recommend and explain solutions or alternatives for approval.
• Ability to utilize the Code of Ethics to manage self, others, information, and resources.
• Ability to mentor others and create feedback loops with supervisors, colleagues, and subordinates to build strong working relationships and improve performance.
• Contribute to maintaining organizational unit’s performance goals and standards.
• Interpersonal skills with ability to keep a client informed of progress or setbacks in projects of relevance to timeline, quality, and quantity.
• Ability to proactively interact with clients and build strong trusting relationships based on mutual respect and regular discussions.
• Ability to establish and sustain professional credibility with clients/stakeholders in a manner that anticipates their need, mitigates issues and that carefully balances professional obligations with the need to be sensitive and responsive to their needs.
• Ability to counsel, advise, consult, and guide others on matters pertaining to assigned client service responsibilities and established client service standards.
• Demonstrate respect for cultural differences, fairness, and ability to relate well with people from varied backgrounds, nationality, gender, ethnicity, race and religion.
• Understanding of diverse cultural views especially within West Africa, with sensitivity to group differences; ability to challenge bias and to practice tolerance and empathy.
• Ability to listen actively, consider people’s concerns and apply judgement, tact, and diplomacy.
• Ability to work in a diverse and inclusive interactive environment that benefits from diverse strengths.
• Ability and responsibility for incorporating gender perspectives and ensuring the equal participation of women and men in all areas of work.
• Ability to encourage, empower, and advocate for people in an unbiased and transparent manner.
• Knowledge of ECOWAS institutions, sectors, programmes and policies.
• Knowledge of ECOWAS internal operational requirements of programs, projects, services, and systems required to achieve work assignments and meet performance goals.
• Knowledge of rules and procedures of ECOWAS associated assigned responsibilities and ability to explain these clearly to others.
• Knowledge of the ECOWAS culture, structures and performance issues and priorities impacting assigned responsibilities.
• Knowledge of member states development trends, indicators, challenges, and opportunities as it relates to project/program assigned to own position.
• Ability to study data/information from a variety of sources, identify anomalies, trends and issues, present findings, and make recommendations.
• Ability to break down problems or processes into key parts to identify and solve gaps in service, quality assurance, compliance, and performance targets.
• Knowledge of and ability to apply techniques to generate creative ideas and new approaches to meeting goals.
• Ability to use evidence and research to inform policies and programs and identify relevant and appropriate sources of information, including stakeholders, regional institutions and/or internal committees.
• Demonstrate operational computer proficiency using appropriate tools.
• Ability to make sound use of graphics and tables to effectively present numerical data to write semi-complex technical reports/proposals and edit/check templates, letters, etc.
• Ability to convey information clearly and concisely in a succinct and organized manner through both writing and verbal means.
• Exhibit interpersonal skills, make presentations, express opinions, and debate ideas with others in a constructive manner.
• Proficiency in information communication technologies (ICT).
• Fluency in oral and written expressions in one of the ECOWAS official languages of the Community (English, French & Portuguese). Knowledge of an additional one will be an added advantage.
• Ability to develop, implement an individual action plan for achieving specific work goals.
• Identify, organize, and monitor tasks throughout to facilitate execution.
• Ability to contribute and/or lead on projects as per accepted project management standards and techniques, to co-ordinate contributions by others to set and meet deadlines.
• Ability to organize work, set priorities, and work within timelines, giving attention to details, stakeholders, indicators, and risks.
• Ability to identify, collect and assess indicators to monitor performance and to take proactive remedial action as required.

Salary
UA 56,591.37 (USD 89,289.87) annually.

Application Instructions:

The application deadline is on 21st April, 2025. Therefore, Qualified and interested candidates should send their updated Resume to: [email protected] using the Job Title as the subject of the email.

Click here to download the application form (Docx.)

Note
Disclaimer:

• Selection and appointment will be subject to background and reference checks and other administrative requirements.
• ECOWAS does not charge for any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing in connection with application or recruitment processes and does not concern itself with information on applicants’ bank accounts.
• Assessment method: Assessment of qualified candidates may include a written exercise and a competency-based interview.