Gareth, thanks for carving out a window for me to pick your brains, let's start with an easy one, how long have you been with OSIT?
Coming up to six years now
What where you doing before you joined OSIT?
I was working for another IT Managed Services Provider in a senior role. I was an internal escalation point – a little bit like the Senior Support Engineers at Office Solutions IT
What did your role involve when you first joined OSIT?
I came in as a senior support engineer for our Red Team.
And how has your role and career developed today?
My role has developed immensely. I got promoted from senior support engineer to a project engineer and then not too long after I was promoted again to Partner for the yellow support team.
What does a typical day to day look like?
My day to day is a little less hands on with technical-support-tickets, instead its geared more towards providing a strategic outpost for our customers, building relationships, managing a team of support engineers and problem management recommendations. Oh, and scoping projects to help customers get more out of their IT.
Tell me more about these ‘get-more-out-of-your-it-projects’
Essentially there are two ways that we can identify a project. Either the customer tells us of their desire to nail a certain outcome (or result) and we’ll work out whether we can help them to achieve this outcome with their current infrastructure or scope out the changes that need to happen to get it done.
The other method is through our proactive problem management – this is where we identify a recurring problem (or issue) that is getting in the way of our customers day-to-day – essentially causing a road-block that prevents them from hitting their goals. And again, we’ll determine if we can resolve the problem with their current infrastructure and propose a new solution.
It’s a very pro-active way of dealing with issues – and it saves the customer from having to endure the issue and frustration that comes with battling a recurring issue all the time.
Do you have a mentor or role model at OSIT? And if so, what’s the best piece of advice you’ve received from them?
One of the best pieces of advice I received happened a while ago. I was managing Exchange server 2010, which was a complicated beast at the time. And I was asking our senior technician for his advice on fixing my garden reticulation… And his reply:
“But yet, you can manage Exchange 2010…? Just go home and do it!”
Stuck with me ever since. It sounds silly, but I guess it was a little reminder to believe in myself. I always knew I was capable of doing anything I set my mind to, but I’ve always limited myself to one area. So, I’ve applied the same ‘just do it’ approach to my career and it’s done wonders ever since.
Let’s talk growth, as the Partner for our Yellow team, you’ve obviously levelled up your role since joining OSIT, what role did OSIT play in this?
When I was SSE, I worked closely with the project engineer – and having such direct access to your team members at OSIT gives you the opportunity to ask questions, get hands on training and learn a heap of information.
It turned out that the project engineer moved on to another position, so I put my name forward to take on the role and I was enrolled in our internal training academy that helped me to secure the position.
It’s been a full on 6 years for you at OSIT so far, what do the next 12 months look like for you?
I’d like to evolve in my role a lot more. I’ve identified some weaknesses in my game, so I want to solidify my skills and use them to grow my team to it's full potential.
And I know a couple of the senior support engineers have their eyes on becoming a Partner for our next support team, so I’ll be giving them all the support they need to make it happen. I've been lucky to have three of my senior support engineers be promoted to the Partner role and its always awesome to see you team members get the chance to level up.
So, c'mon, be honest, how are you feeling walking into the office on a Monday morning?
Happy! It’s like the weekend continues for another 4 days. I’ve never not wanted to come into the office.
If you could give applicants one tip to landing a job at Office Solutions IT what would it be?
Be honest. This company thrives on honesty. So, if you’re honest and you don’t know something, just own it.
And finally, can you share one thing you love about working for OSIT?
Which one!? I’d have to say the fact that the directors all live and breathe the core values of the company. You can really see it – and feel it filtering down from the top.
