Service Central supporting staff through the pandemic

Service Central has helped ACU staff adjust to the immediate and longer-term challenges of COVID-19, and gain rapid support by accessing many of ACU’s professional services for staff.  

Director of Corporate Services Sharone Ciancio said the sheer scale of change in responding to COVID-19 impacts has put all ACU staff to the test.

“Many staff had to transition from the office to working from home and back again,” she said. “They needed increased support from different service areas, not just with setting up their work environment in their home, but also with different ways of working such as using Microsoft Teams and Zoom, as well as updating web information, accessing advice on health and safety, and arranging extra cleaning and signage.There were many different things for staff to cope with, causing increased service queries and requests as the pandemic developed.”

View the Service Central infographic in Workplace to see how staff accessed support during the pandemic.

Supporting an agile response

Service Central was fully introduced in June 2019 as a single service point for ACU staff to access a range of information and professional services, and its features have enabled ACU to be supported rapidly during major changes and disruption – such as a pandemic

Sharone said the benefits of automating and standardising service delivery through one platform have become particularly clear during the pandemic, when requests for information and assistance rapidly increased.

“In a world before Service Central, seeking services and information was often an uncertain and time-wasting exercise for staff. The pandemic would have exacerbated this experience due to an overwhelming demand for services – causing high levels of stress and dissatisfaction for staff seeking information and support, and also services struggling to manage the demand and efficiently respond.

“The pandemic has shown how crucial having a scalable, efficient service enquiry and request system is in helping ACU respond rapidly to major disruption and change, both for the service user and the service deliverer. Between March and August, the data shows that there was a significant increase in staff accessing information and self-service channels, which reduced the need of staff to contact Service Central to assist them.In addition, Service Central has been able to resolve 30 per cent of queries at first contact, compared to 18 per cent at the same time last year.This has helped lighten the load on service areas.

“Before Service Central existed, there were almost no digital forms for these services for staff. Now we have 225 automated forms which go directly to the right team to resolve it, saving time for the requester and the service. These forms have reduced processes and approvals from weeks to days or hours.”

“We also have an extensive online library of 1,300 knowledge articles that save time searching for information or calling services. Service areas have worked hard to keep these regularly updated with accurate and consistent information in a rapidly changing environment.”

With the arrival of the pandemic, knowledge articles were viewed 18,000 times in March alone, Sharone said, an increase of 300 per cent on the previous month.

“The amount of people accessing knowledge shows the flood of enquiries that would have been made, if staff were not able to locate the information they needed quickly.”

How Service Central can help you

The Service Central portal provides access to a wide range of information and services including IT, Properties and Facilities, HR, Student Administration, Finance, Marketing and External Relations, Office of General Counsel,Governance, Office of Planning and Strategic Management, and other services.

Service Central Officers are also available during business hours via phone (07) 3623 7272 or online chat to help staff with queries about any of these services.