2021 Trends Driving Auto-Resolution Of Employee Internal Issues In Educational Institutions

In 2021, education is not confined to the campuses of schools and colleges. Digitization has resulted in increased flexibility and automation in the field of education. Students studying on-premise and those who are learning remotely have access to several software platforms and tools that make learning more accessible and more effective. 

However, to provide state-of-the-art educational services to the students, educational institutions often tend to ignore the internal issues faced by their employees. When the internal employee support processes are inadequate, teachers and other staff members face difficulties in getting their issues resolved. 

Keeping this in mind, educational institutions are switching to automated solutions for providing seamless and integrated support to their employees. Many employee support processes can be automated with the help of modern service desks. These service desks make use of AI to provide personalized support to employees, allowing them to auto-resolve their issues. When your employees can auto-resolve their issues, they don't need to depend on anyone to get their questions answered. 

A centralized service desk provides holistic support to employees by understanding the context of their issues and providing them with tailored resources specifically for them. 

Before we get to the trends driving auto-resolution of employee issues, let us understand the significant issues faced by the employees working in educational institutions implementing a traditional approach to employee support. 

Issues Faced By Employees With Traditional Support System In Educational Institutions

1. Lack Of Centralization
   
   Traditional employee support does not provide employees with a centralized platform for resolving issues. This makes different staff members approach different authorities to get their questions answered. This often results in teachers and other staff members (often new hires) being confused about whom to approach to obtain immediate and effective assistance.
   
   
2. No Provision For Remote Employees
   
   The traditional employee support system was often limited to employees working within the campus. The helpdesks were not designed to help employees working remotely and looking to get their issues resolved.
   
   
3. The Traditional Ticketing System
   
   Not everyone working at an educational institution is capable of using complicated ticketing platforms to obtain support. The manual ticketing system required employees to create their tickets and keep track of them until support agents resolve their issues.
   
   
4. Delayed Support
   
   The traditional employee support processes involved support agents from the get-go. This made them overburdened with requests from students, teachers, and other staff members. When the agents are always occupied with many cases to handle, it often results in an unnecessary delay in the support provided. This often made the staff members wait, irrespective of the urgency of their issue.
   
   
5. Lack Of Knowledge Base Optimization
   
   The knowledge base of an educational institution often has the answers to all the questions an employee might have. The traditional support processes failed to optimize this valuable resource, resulting in the employees getting generic solutions and template answers instead of the personalized help.
   
   

Trends Driving Auto-resolution Of Employee Internal Issues In Educational Institutions

The modern employee service desks allow employees in educational institutions to resolve their issues without approaching anyone for help. The digitized platforms help employees obtain personalized solutions to their issues and automate repetitive tasks to increase the organization's overall productivity. Also, AI-driven service desks provide wholesome support to the employees, thereby increasing employee engagement within the organization. 

Here are some of the major trends that allow employees working in educational institutions to auto-resolve their issues: 

1. Interaction With AI Chatbots
   
   The modern employee service desks use conversational AI to help employees interact with chatbots instead of routing their cases to support agents directly. Whenever a teacher or a staff member is looking for help, they can log in to the service desk and interact with the virtual assistant to quickly resolve their issues.
   
   When a staff member asks a question in the chat, the service desk would immediately scan the institution's knowledge base and return with an answer most suitable for the concerned employee within a few seconds. This saves the employee from going through the long and tedious process of finding support agents and waiting for them to resolve their issues.
   
   Read More: How AI Chatbots are automating HR processes?
   
   
   
   
2. Virtual Link Between Employees And Agents
   
   However, the modern auto-resolution trends do not take support agents out of the equation. While the AI chatbots themselves provide the first level of support, employees can get their cases routed to support agents if they need a better insight or are not satisfied with the solution provided.
   
   In these cases, a modern service desk would send all relevant details about the concerned staff member and the case at hand to a suitable support agent to provide them with sufficient context. When the agent looks into the matter and is ready with a suitable solution, they communicate the same to the staff member via chatbots. Here, the AI chatbots act as a virtual link between the employees and the support agents. This allows institutions to streamline the support processes without unnecessary delays.
   
   
3. Auto-resolution Through Automated Ticketing System
   
   The modern employee service desks eliminate the problem of the manual ticketing system by automating the process. The employees in educational institutions can get their issues auto-resolved simply by chatting with virtual assistants.
   
   When an employee wants to get their case routed to an agent, the service desk automatically creates a support ticket and sends it to a dedicated support agent. The platform automates all ticketing processes, right from creating the ticket to tracking it unless the issue is resolved. Once tickets are created, the staff members are updated with the status of their cases in real-time as the agents handle them.
   
   Once the case is resolved, the service desk automatically closes the ticket and feeds the knowledge base with all relevant data about the case for future references.
   
   This way, the trend of automated ticketing systems makes sure that your employees are relieved from undertaking tedious and complicated ticketing processes. Even if the staff members have little to no knowledge of handling ticketing platforms, they can let the service desks resolve their issues by chatting with the AI chatbots.
   
   
4. Automated Employee Onboarding
   
   Especially when it comes to educational institutions, the employees form the backbone of the organization. Teachers, administrators, and all other staff members need to be onboarded so that they can give their best and contribute towards providing quality services to the students.
   
   Apart from resolving issues faced by the employees', automated onboarding is a common trend followed by educational institutions across the board. Here, the service desk is used for onboarding staff members in a streamlined and effective manner. Based on the designation of the employees and their user persona, service desks allow institutions to welcome new employees by sending personalized emails. These emails can be fed with institution policies, expectations from the concerned employee, credentials for logging into collaborative platforms and software (if used), and all other details that help the employees get onboarded effectively.
   
   This, along with the service desk's seamless support, allows employees to get well-versed with the institution and start their journeys on a high note.
   
   
5. Holistic Employee Training
   
   The service desks used for auto-resolution of employee issues can also be used for getting them trained in specific skills. An educational institution may require their teachers to take up specific courses to hone their skills or learn new ones that help them improve their services.
   
   Institutions can help their employees get trained by feeding the knowledge base with the resources and training materials that can be accessed according to their convenience. Instead of training many employees on-premise by hiring a dedicated trainer, educational institutions can personalize the training process through streamlined microlearning. This allows the employees to access the training resources and become self-reliant by learning new skills.
   
   Moreover, organizations can improve employees' learning experience by making the format of the content engaging. They can add interactive videos, images, charts, infographics, and animations that increase the retention capacity of their employees as they learn new skills. As the employees get increasingly independent, it provides them with a boost of confidence, ultimately leading to more productivity and engagement.
   
   Read More: Microlearning is best-bet for training your remote employees.
   
   
6. Automated Employee Surveys
   
   An educational institution needs to ascertain whether the staff members are content with the support provided to them. The modern service desks allow organizations to create personalized surveys, send the same to staff members, and analyse the feedback received. This helps senior management reinforce the support processes that worked and improve those that didn't.
   
   

The Final Word

These were some of the most critical trends that allow employees in educational institutions to auto-resolve their issues and leverage their productivity in 2021. It is always advisable for institutions to switch from traditional support processes to automated solutions to obtain the best results.