TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

From Combat to Computers

Dennis McCafferty | Date: 06-10-10 | Comments

Wounded warriors are now coming home to IT jobs thanks to the Purple Heart program.

Perhaps no commitment requires more of its participants than military service�especially over the last decade. Unfortunately for the men and women who bravely serve, there are significant additional challenges when they come home and hope to land suitable employment as civilians.

Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan today face a 21 percent unemployment rate, up from 14.7 percent in 2008. There are also about 4 million disabled American veterans, many of whom face even greater difficulties in getting hired. True, there are commendable programs such as Helmets to Hardhats, which provides job placement and training opportunities to veterans in the construction/building industry.

But many veterans are more interested in IT jobs. Even if they have hearing/vision problems or spinal cord injuries, they�re physically capable of succeeding in tech, but lack the training to do so.

In a partnership with Tampa, Fla.-based Numara Software and other technology vendors, Purple Heart Services (PHS) is looking to change this unemployment trend. The organization is leveraging new service desk/remote support technology such as Numara FootPrints to train disabled veterans to be level 1- and level 2-certified service desk agents.

Through the technology, veterans are learning how to deliver effective service to end users and implement core ITIL service lifecycle processes, such as incident, problem and service request, and knowledge management. Training exercises include real customer calls alongside how to handle extensive business-rule automation, e-mail management, customer surveys and remote troubleshooting.

The Numara solution is all Web-based, so participants can train from their own homes and eventually work for companies remotely. The built-in graphical dashboards, metrics and reporting features make it possible for instructors to monitor the productivity, efficiency and response times of each student. This reporting is now included as part of the grading process to identify students who may need more training to master core concepts.

In addition, Numara Software has agreed to host the solution through its software-as-a service (SAAS) option and manage the IT infrastructure to reduce the burden on the PHS IT team. Since its launch, the program has grown in popularity, and there are now 3,000 potential veteran trainees on the current waiting list for 2010.

�The solution has been really easy to implement, manage and configure for our needs,� says Jonathan Frazier, IT manager for PHS. �It�s helped resolve a lot of our previous IT service desk problems�like manual tracking of tickets�in a short period of time. We have a centralized view of the problems we�re handling and the solutions we�re deploying for end users all over the country. In addition, we have solid reports and definable metrics on exactly what we�re doing regarding tech support.�

Graduates of the program will be ready for employment in either government agency call center roles or corporate IT organizations.

�These veterans may be injured physically, but they have razor sharp minds and unparalleled work ethics,� states Ken Smith, CEO of PHS. �Our mission is to put their unique set of skills and military precision to use�training them to become certified IT agents and build promising careers.�