Emma Irwin, Award Winning Service Desk Manager

Emma started with us on the commercial graduate scheme in September 2020, and 3 years later she's become an award winning Complex Team Manager in IT Service Management.

We caught up with her to learn more about her squiggly career. Going from a graduate to leading teams, and all the internal learning and upskilling opportunities she took to get there.

Read on to learn about her journey and what Service Management Desks do for our customers.

How did your career with BT start and can you tell us about your experience on the graduate scheme?

I graduated university with a degree in Drama and a Masters in Communications and Public Relations with Advertising, as I wanted to develop my skills in other areas. I had heard great things about working for BT Group as I already knew people on the Digital graduate scheme. When I looked into the schemes, commercial management stood out to me. It mentioned I would have the opportunity to rotate around the business and learn how to 'become my own boss'.

I love learning and trying new things so I believed this would be a perfect start as BT Group is such a large, dynamic company. I adored my time on the graduate scheme, I was able to truly build a 'squiggly career' and take on entirely different roles within different areas of the business. I was able to network with lots of people in my two years on the scheme and they have really helped me get to where I am now.

I first began in 2020 during lockdown as a channel performance lead in small and medium businesses, working to improve the reporting and help BT and EE retention sales. Whilst in this role, I spoke to all team leads and understood the challenges they were facing during Covid. For the first time I worked with excel and was able to move all EE agents to an online tracker that helped save the team leads 16 hours a week and see sales in live time. I further developed my skills in excel and created a dashboard of all KPIs in one place for BT retention sales saving the business £95,000 a week.

My next role was as jeopardy manager of the managed service desk. In this role, I handled the escalations for over 400 global customers. I worked closely with the service desk team to support customers in helping solve their faults and issues. Within this role, I had an integral role in saving 95% of time in the passing of tickets to a third party resolver by moving the service desk agents to use an online portal.

My last role before mapping off was in internal communications where I joined the team that organised BT Enterprise Live 2022 for 3,500 colleagues (now known as BT Business). Part of my role was to work with external partners and I used my previous drama experience to become a roving reporter behind the scenes of Enterprise Live and the BT Means Business launch. From my experience in my first rotation, I used my excel knowledge and interests to develop insights from the communications strategies. On top of my day job, I was part of GradNet social team, Belfast Social Engagement team, and Early Enterprise Career Community Ireland Lead. There is so much you can say 'yes' to and be involved in, and I couldn't recommend the grad scheme more.

You're now a Complex Team Manager/ Service Desk Manager. Can you tell us about your role and what a typical day or week looks like to you?

The managed service desk provides a single point of contact between IT operations for colleagues, customers, suppliers, and business partners. The service desk is responsible for service request management, incident management and event management, meaning we handle service requests as well as service faults and issues for our customers.

I work as part of a team of 3 managers on the Belfast Managed Service Desk over a team of 45 people. Within the service desk team there is a wide variety of knowledge from apprentices to colleagues with 50 years of service. The service desk team work 24/7 365 days a year to support our secure and commercial customers. My role as a people manager is to have regular 121s, team huddles, ensuring the upskilling and training of my team and coaching to make sure the quality is of a high standard for our customers.

My role entails approving and supporting customers, processes and tools into service and any in life updates. I ensure the team have weekly communications of changes in the business and learnings we can take to improve our services. No two days are the same, honest! The IT world is continually improving so every day brings new and exciting challenges.

You recently got recognised externally as 'Young ITSM Professional of the Year'. Congratulations! Can you tell us about that award, that experience, and what it means in your field/industry?

Thank you! The title was awarded to an individual under the age of 30 who has demonstrated an outstanding level of achievement, ability and team support in the early years of their IT Service Management career, and who also promises great potential for future success. I was so honoured to be considered as a finalist, I'm still in shock I won! It really means so much to me, coming from a drama background and using all the skills I've developed in BT to get me to where I am today. I'm very proud of the achievement and I would not have been able to get this far if it wasn't for my managers, senior management and my colleagues' support. I'll be back at the ITSMF awards next year delivering a presentation.

What opportunities have you had beyond your current role? 

Outside of my current role, I am co-apprentice lead of the Belfast Managed Service apprenticeship scheme. As part of this, one of my fellow 2020 commercial graduate colleagues and I ensure the apprentices on the Cyber Security course have a great induction into our area of the business, organise their 6 month rotations, join monthly higher level apprentice meetings with Belfast Met College and hold weekly apprentice huddles to help support their development skills. Every 6 months we arrange for our senior leader to attend our huddle in which the apprentices present their key achievements.

I'm a Belfast engagement representative for Business and helped organise Christmas in the Clouds in Riverside Tower, an event on our top floor for our Business colleagues to bring their children along for lots of festive activities as well as meeting Santa. As I was a roving reporter and in the internal comms team, I was asked to reprise my presenting skills to take part in the filming of the Careers and Skills session for BT Live 2023 in our London office (One Braham) TV studio.

I am also a member of the Belfast Social Engagement Team for the entire office and my highlight was taking part in leading the Belfast Sports Day last year to raise money for Friends of Cancer.

I love to get involved in extra activities as I think it gives you the opportunity to get to know people on a more personal level and makes life interesting, for example running a leg of the Belfast Marathon for Home Start UK as someone who does not enjoy running.

How has the business supported your career development more broadly ? And any advice you'd give to others starting on a graduate scheme?

There's lots of opportunity to grow your skills, as we have access to LinkedIn Learning, I've been able to top up my knowledge on excel and now know how to use very complex formulas and learn tips on how to be a good people manager.

There is always a chance learn about new areas of the business by connecting with people in different networking groups, there's lots of communities and events to keep up with that you can join on workplace. Within my current role, I've achieved my ITIL 4 foundation and recently got my ITIL V4 Specialist: Monitor, Support and Fulfil. I've also received a Continuous Improvement Gold medal, all of which I've added to My Campus (our internal AI-powered learning platform) to keep track of my professional skills.

How does your work have an impact on the broader business and customers? What do you enjoy most about your role?

The service desk team directly communicates with our customers every day and night. The service desk team is available for our customers whenever they need them, to support them and help resolve their faults as efficiently as possible.

I adore bringing my creative flair and passion to connect and communicate with people in my role, whether it be Business strategies, local initiatives or knowledge transfers between the team. There is always someone to know who has a wealth of knowledge in their area that will help make other people's roles and lives easier or better, and I enjoy meeting new people within the business to help with these improvements.

Check out our service roles at BT Business