Service Desk Lead

Job Description:

The Service Desk Lead is responsible for the day-to-day operational leadership of the IT Service Desk team, ensuring SLA targets are met, escalations are managed effectively, and analysts are supported, coached, and held accountable to performance standards. This role acts as the bridge between the Service Desk team and IT management, owning team-level metrics, scheduling, quality, and process governance while remaining hands-on for critical incidents.

Key Responsibilities:

• Supervise the Service Desk team, including task allocation, shift/roster scheduling, coverage planning, attendance/leave management, and shift swaps.
• Conduct  coaching, identify skill gaps, coordinate training and onboarding plans, and handle first-line people issues.
• Own overall team performance against SLAs (FCR, ART, CSAT, backlog, response/abandonment rates), monitoring queues in real time and reallocating resources during volume spikes or shortages.
• Act as incident commander for major incidents (P1/P2), driving communication, coordinating with Level 2/3 and vendors, and ensuring post-incident reviews are completed.
• Own escalation paths between Service Desk and Level 2/3 teams, and manage the ITSM tool's queues, routing rules, and SLA configuration.
• Review and approve knowledge base articles, SOPs, and runbooks for accuracy and consistency.
• Drive continuous improvement, analysing incident trends for root-cause/problem elimination, identifying automation and self-service opportunities, and leading quality audits (ticket/call/chat reviews) with structured analyst feedback.
• Own Service Desk SOPs, escalation matrices, and onboarding documentation;
• Serve as the primary stakeholder contact for Service Desk performance and major incidents; prepare and present performance reports to IT leadership.
• Represent the Service Desk in cross-functional forums (Change Advisory Board, Problem Management reviews, rollout planning) and lead shift handovers and team huddles.

Qualifications

•         Bachelor's degree or diploma in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field.

•         5–8 years of experience in an IT Service Desk, Help Desk, or Technical Support role guiding analysts including at least 2 years in a team lead, supervisory, or shift lead capacity

•         Strong knowledge on ITIL process and hands on of ITSM tools such as ServiceNow, Jira, or similar ticketing systems.

•         Excellent verbal and written communication skills

•         Customer-focused approach with strong interpersonal skills.

Shift Pattern: U.S. Business Hours / Rotational Shifts (Flexible based on business requirements)

Role is onsite and expected to work from office for 5 days