Ah, what a ride it had been! My automation journey had its fair share of highs and lows, but in the end, I made it through and achieved what I wanted. But it wasn’t over yet, a new challenge came my way – boosting my team’s morale. My team members were happy with what they had accomplished so far, but somewhere, they were feeling insecure. Insecure about how automation might affect their jobs.

Quite understandably, though, as it wasn’t the first time their position in the organization could be put under scrutiny. Their fear of being laid off was real!

In this blog post, I will share the story of how automation impacted and evolved my team, amidst all those lingering fears and job security concerns.

Starting At the Bottom

So, let’s take a short trip down memory lane!  Like many others in the field of Information Technology, I began my career at the bottom – working on the Service Desk. Over the years, I made progress into Identity & Access Management, advancing both in my career and knowledge. But, you know, life has its ups and downs. In 2013, I found myself facing a bit of a curveball when I experienced a layoff at a large oil and gas company in Houston, Texas. It was a challenging time, but it ultimately led to new opportunities and growth.

On a parallel note, the new company I was about to join had recently outsourced its Service Desk, which unfortunately meant that the analysts in that department were set to be laid off. However, the feeling of insecurity extended to the Identity & Access Management team, and they became fearful that their jobs might be on the line next. This fear led the entire team to either resign or seek other positions.

This situation created a significant void that need to be filled, and the organization decided to transfer the former Service Desk Analysts to the vacant Identity & Access Management positions. The group would be called Account Management.

However, it wasn’t like they had suddenly been handed a golden spoon; there were still many challenges for them. Due to the fact that many of these analysts had previously worked on the Service Desk, they received little to no respect. People often treated them as if they were still Help Desk staff, and the way they were spoken to was less than respectful. To say that many of them felt undervalued and had already formed negative opinions due to the impending layoffs would be an understatement.

As for how I entered the scene, since the department was new, there was a lack of security experience and knowledge of best practices. The company needed someone with Identity & Access Management experience to assist with ticket and process management. That’s when I joined the team as a contractor to help reduce the backlog and improve processes.

Realigning the Group

When I first joined the team, things were a bit chaotic. There were no clear processes or procedures in place for providing access, so I started to work on defining those procedures. I also realized that there were some gaps in the existing processes, and we had over 1,000 tickets in the backlog. This meant we had to put in some overtime to catch up.

On top of that, the team’s morale was low due to the possibility of layoffs. So, you can imagine, we had our work cut out for us. Identity provisioning and deprovisioning relied heavily on manual processes, which was far from ideal. We were in trouble and had a lot of work to do.

We began by deploying our Identity Management Tool for employees and integrating it with our HR system. This allowed us to onboard and deprovision employees before their hire date. However, non-employees were still processed manually using an internally developed identity tool. Needless to say, this did not improve our standing within the organization.

Over the next few years, I worked closely with our team, the identity tool architects (who often juggled competing priorities), and our leadership over the next few years to revamp our processes and enhance the overall customer experience, which earned us moderate respect.

At the time, the Information Security team was considered the crème de la crème team in the organization. Everyone dreamt of being part of that team, which boasted some of the most respected analysts in the organization. We too admired and envied this team.

Nevertheless, we continued to work diligently to improve our SLAs. What’s funny, though, is that some of the folks who had once been on the Service Desk and had now moved up to more prestigious positions were the same ones who used to criticize and insult Service Desk analysts. Life has its twists, doesn’t it?

It’s crucial to understand that the Service Desk is the front line of most organizations. They provide an incredibly valuable service. With the right knowledge and processes in place, the Service Desk could be the catalyst that drives customer satisfaction scores for the entire Information Services department. If only we could embrace and rally behind these analysts; they often go on to become senior leaders in the organizations.

A Turnaround

Dedication and hard work truly do pay off. Our team had made significant progress in improving our security posture and had shored up all of our processes. We not only managed to tackle our backlog effectively but also started receiving more work requests, which was a testament to our perseverance.

The turnaround was when we deployed Microsoft Identity Manager. It marked the beginning of our success, and we also developed processes for managing our non-employee workforce, along with establishing procedures for bulk requests. What previously took 3 weeks for provisioning was now a seamless process, taking less than 1 week.

We began to see our reputation improve, which grew exponentially when we got all our architects on board, focusing solely on our identity management solution and streamlining our processes by eliminating competing applications. They were fully committed to enhancing the system and making our processes even better.

Automation and Fear

So, this was a sneak peek into my team’s remarkable journey so far. Now, you may understand why everyone on the team was so skeptical about this new transformation. Maybe everything just rewound in their minds too. Our journey has been quite the rollercoaster ride, filled with its fair share of challenges. And just when we thought we could finally catch a breath, bam! we had to deal with COVID-19 and work around a new set of challenges.