Manager ICT Service Desk

Department: Information and Comm. Technologies 

Job Type: Limited Term

Full-time/Part-time: Full Time (>=1249 hrs/year) 

Campus: Waterloo 

Reports to: Director, ICT Support

Employee Group: Management 

Application Deadline: 04/28/2025 

Requisition ID: 9221 

Wilfrid Laurier University is a leading multi-campus university that excels at educating with purpose. Through its exceptional employees, students, researchers, leaders, and educators, Laurier has built a reputation as a world-class institution known for its rich student experience, academic excellence, and global impact. With a commitment to Indigenization and commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, Laurier’s thriving community has a place for everyone.

Laurier has more than 19,000 students and 2,100 faculty and staff across campuses in Waterloo and Brantford, as well locations in Kitchener and Milton. The university is committed to providing an inclusive workplace, a flexible work policy and employing a workforce that is reflective of local and national demographics. Laurier's Waterloo, Kitchener, and Brantford campuses are located on the shared traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishnaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples. This land is part of the Dish with One Spoon Treaty between the Haudenosaunee and Anishnaabe peoples and symbolizes the agreement to share, protect our resources, and not to engage in conflict.  Laurier's Milton campus is located on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, and part of the Nanfan Treaty of 1701 between the British Crown and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

Please note: To be eligible for employment, you must reside in the province/territory that the position is located, and must be able to attend campus as part of your regular work schedule. 

Position Summary

Reporting to the Director, ICT Support, the Manager, ICT Service Desk is accountable for managing tier 1 services and support for faculty, staff and students at the university. The Manager ICT Service Desk is responsible for the service desk strategy and continuous improvements enhancing ICT’s service delivery model. The incumbent will work to strengthen “ITIL” processes and best practices ensuring high client satisfaction and positive support outcomes by meeting or exceeding Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This position is responsible for development and updating of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), Service Desk standard operating procedures and metrics. This role manages the lifecycle of incidents within the Service Desk ticketing system and all tasks associated with service requests. This includes ensuring that tickets are generated, priorities are assigned, status is communicated, escalations occur where necessary, adherence to SLAs, solutions are provided, and solutions are documented in the OneNote Knowledge Base. The Service Desk is the first point of contact for clients for anything IT.

Services provided by the Service Desk include remote and in person 1st level support for hardware and software, smartphones, web conferencing, classroom technologies, and enterprise application support. The Service Desk performs tier 1 identity management and security tasks for active directory accounts, assisting with Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) issues and fulfilling system access requests. Given the diversity of clients at the University, extensive knowledge of all ICT operations, processes and procedures are required to effectively manage and resolve incidents and requests for clients. This position creates materials to conduct training workshops and webinars to enhance the knowledge of faculty, staff and students related to ICT tools when required.

The manager is accountable and responsible for budget management and for resource management on the service desk including hiring, training, performance, scheduling student and full-time employees, and directing their daily operational tasks. The incumbent is expected to work with technical support staff in other ICT departments to ensure that the services offered by ICT meet the requirements of the institution.

Interpersonal interactions are required on an ongoing basis with all departments at the Brantford, Waterloo, and Milton campuses, Wilfrid Laurier University Students Union, and the Graduate Student Association. The incumbent will work in a multi-campus environment and will be required to travel to other university campuses/locations when required.

Accountabilities

Leadership/ICT Business/Project Management

• Provide leadership, training, coaching and mentorship to the Service Desk Analysts; Complete performance evaluations, create career development goals, and establish and maintain solid hiring practices;

• Be familiar with and ensure compliance with applicable employment policies and practices;

• Manage and monitor all activities of the Service Desk team including prioritization of tickets, task assignments, and resource allocation;

• Leads the service desk strategy and drives continuous improvements to enhance the service desk delivery model and ensure the team meets or exceeds service levels identified;

• Research IT service management trends and best practices; introduce new technologies and practices into the service delivery model; participate in Special Interest Groups with other universities sharing ideas and strategies; 

• Prepare business cases and participate in RFP processes when acquiring new software and hardware related to the Service Desk;

• Leads Service Desk projects which includes creating project plans, budget and time estimates, resource allocation, communications strategies, and executes projects on time, on budget and on scope;

• Co-lead the Microsoft Co-pilot Community of Practice (COP); develop strategy and approach, define roles and responsibilities, effectively communicate and ensure the COP is effective and adds value to the Laurier community as it relates to Microsoft Co-pilot solution;

• Collaborate with members of the ICT Leadership Team and other functional partners to ensure the service desk is effective and efficient in delivering services to clients; 

• Manage annual budgets and create budget submission requests for new technologies, solutions, ICT staff increases, new projects, and software licenses;

• Required to be a member of and participate on the Change Advisory Board and ICTAG (ICT Architecture Group) to provide input and consult on service delivery best practices;

• Regularly report critical support metrics and KPIs.

ICT Service Management

• Manage service requests, incidents and problems based on ITIL best practices. Leads and coordinates urgent and complicated support issues. Act as escalation point for all requests and incidents. When appropriate, determine root cause of issues and communicate to affected internal and external clients;

• Recognize and report service disruptions and outages to the appropriate ICT team and communicate required actions to the Support team to ensure they are aware of and can support the clients

• Make certain that service requests and incidents are logged, assigned, prioritized, and resolved in accordance with service level commitments;

• Accountable to configure the service management tool to create KPIs and ensure all ICT users have access and knowledge to track incidents and service requests appropriately;

• Strive to increase 1st call resolution and implement solutions that provide long term benefit, increasing productivity and efficiency in university operations;

• Responsible for the development and continuous improvement of the service delivery model, processes, and key performance indicators to ensure ICT services evolve and are relevant to client needs; develop strategies for improvement based on key performance indicators;

• Escalation of client issues to second and third tier support in the ICT organization;

• Review and action client survey feedback to improve services, tools and client experiences;

• Manage customer dissatisfaction issues and proactively seek ways to improve customer satisfaction.

• Responsible and accountable for the student loaner laptop program; defining and maintaining processes, holding students accountable to return laptops, tracking assets, and writing business cases to receive funding for the program;

• Endeavor to build solid client relationships to thoroughly understand their technical requirements, to help them achieve their objectives;

• Create and maintain Qualtrics forms to improve ICT service requests integrating automated approval processes and efficiencies; build Power Automate work flows to automate support team processes;

• Create, update and maintain ICT web pages on intranet (wlu.ca) and ICT student website (students.wlu.ca);

• Facilitates the procurement and distribution of approved ICT desktop productivity software

• Create training materials and deliver workshops and webinars for productivity tools presented by ICT

ICT Technical Elements

• Support of the windows and mac computing environments including but not limited to Windows 10 and 11 Microsoft environment, Mac environment, and research computers;

• Support for tier 1 identity management systems such as Azure Active Directory, Exchange Admin Centre, Multi-Factor Authentication

• Software support of but not limited to Microsoft Office365 (Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Power Automate), Adobe PDF Creator, various browsers, Zoom, Banner and Banner integrated systems, Qualtrics, and ICT service management system

• Triage and support of hardware and software issues

• Triage and basic support of wireless and wired network connectivity (DNS, DHCP, and TCPIP) and audio-visual media equipment such as projectors, sound equipment, microphones and web conferencing;

Student Employees

• Responsible to hire, on-board, and train the Student Service Desk Analysts and Coop students

• Accountable to train the Student Service Desk Analysts and Coop students to make certain they are competent to create service tickets, provide 1st call resolution, pass service tickets onto 2nd and 3rd level support when required, close tickets, and prioritize and escalate tickets as appropriate;

• Lead and manage the day-to-day activities of the student employees ensuring the service delivery model is adhered to and the level of customer service exceeds expectations;

• Complete all administrative tasks such as scheduling students, recording attendance, safety training, and conducting performance reviews, etc.

Reporting Relationships
 

Position Titles and Number of Incumbents Reporting to this Position:

2 FTE Service Desk Analysts, 1 coop student, and student Service Desk employees – 10 to 15 students

Qualifications

• This position requires a Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and experience;

• Three years of work experience within Information Technology and 3+ years’ experience in a manager or team/lead supervisor role leading a service desk or managing service desk operations;

• ITIL v3 Foundation certification required;

• Experience working with Azure Active Directory, DHCP, DNS, wireless, remote access, Banner Ellucian;

• Technical proficiency in Microsoft Office365, Windows 10 operating systems, Barracuda Networks, Mac O/S, Exchange Online, Adobe PDF Creator, web browsers, Sharepoint, OneDrive, Teams, Zoom;

• Sophisticated problem solving, negotiating and prioritizing abilities in a multi-task environment;

• Proven ability to work under deadlines and manage changing priorities.

• Ability to communicate effectively both verbally and in writing; establish and maintain effective working relationships with all levels of staff and management.

• Financial acumen and experience with creating and managing budgets. Ability to develop business cases, cost estimates and total cost of ownership models;

• Strong knowledge of ITIL service delivery models and must demonstrate exceptional customer service skills;

• Able to recognize problems, collect data, and escalate to appropriate departments; Recognize when to communicate problems and to whom;

• IT Vendor and contract management

• Experience with the development and delivery of training materials;

Hours of work

This is a full-time limited term position with an expected end date of July 17, 2026. The normal hours of work are Monday to Friday, 8:30am-4:30pm. Schedule requires flexibility to deal with critical issues on a 24/7 basis.

This role offers limited flexibility regarding flexible work arrangements. Please see Policy 8.14 (Flexible Work Policy) for more information. All arrangements must be approved by the direct manager. On occasion, this schedule may need to be adjusted to meet operational requirements.

Compensation

Level: MG-2A

Annual Salary: $71,042 - $88,803

When new employees are hired the appropriate base salary is determined using these sub-ranges as a guide while adhering to rules on hiring as defined in our compensation policy. Considerations for new hire salaries include, qualifications and length/depth of required experience, relevant market rates for similar jobs, internal equity, and estimated learning curve in starting the job.

Wilfrid Laurier University endeavors to fill positions with qualified candidates who have a combination of education, experience, skills and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position while demonstrating Laurier's Employee Success Factors.

Equity, diversity and creating a culture of inclusion are part of Laurier’s core values and central to the Laurier Strategy. Laurier is committed to increasing the diversity of faculty and staff and welcomes applications from candidates who identify as Indigenous, racialized, having disabilities, and from persons of any minority sexual and gender identities. Indigenous candidates who would like to learn more about equity and inclusive programing at Laurier are welcomed to contact the Office of Indigenous Initiatives. Candidates from other equity deserving groups who would like to learn more about equity and inclusive programing at Laurier are welcomed to contact Equity & Accessibility. We have strived to make our application process accessible, however if you require any assistance applying for a position or would like this job posting in an alternative format, please contact Human Resources. Contact information can be found at careers.wlu.ca/content/How-to-apply/

Should you be interested in learning more about this opportunity, please visit www.wlu.ca/careers for additional information and the online application system. All applications must be submitted online. Please note, a resume and cover letter will be required in electronic form.