How we set up Jira Service Desk to improve employee engagement

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There are situations in our companies when we need to carry out some internal surveys or employee voting (f.e. for the employee representative). There are many tools we can use for such purposes, for example, SurveyMonkey, TypeForm, SurveyGizmo, and Google Forms. However, in case of the internal activities, we don’t want data leakage. At the same time, we need to identify our voters. Here comes the Jira Service Desk Customer Portal. We use it broadly for customer service, but the Customer Portal also serves for many as the internal tool. In Deviniti, the finance, IT, HR, and marketing teams use it on a daily basis. We also reach for this platform when conducting internal surveys and votings. 

Why we did an internal survey in Jira Service Desk

In the second half-year of 2019, we carried out a big employee survey to recognize the values which we’re lead by in our daily activities. Then we needed to put them into words and promote them among our employees. Printing posters and hoping that everyone reads them isn’t definitely our style. We always try to engage the others and make them part of our project. Also this time, we were looking for something extraordinary. Finally, the upcoming 15th anniversary of Deviniti inspired us to create a unique internal activity that would have the grand finale at the jubilee gala in December 2019. That’s how the idea of the Value Ambassadors Survey was born. What was it all about? We wanted the employees to choose the ambassadors of every value. We meant here people who are the real examples of our values, which means that they are driven by those values in their everyday work. We also wanted to use this survey and the gala to recognize our colleagues for their attitude and behavior that we highly appreciate.

Why did we decide to conduct the plebiscite through Service Desk?

We were looking for a solution that would allow us not only to efficiently collect data (who we vote for and why (as optional)), but also to conveniently process it later. We thought about using Google Forms, but this solution brought with it some limitations: we could not verify who was voting, if each user really only voted once, or if they entered the correct name and surname. These problems were solved by Jira, where each employee has his own individual account. We also wanted employees not to see each other’s votes and opinions. This is where Jira Service Desk came to the rescue. Thanks to this, everyone could fill out the application form corresponding to a given value, selecting an employee from the user picker field, and optionally entering arguments into the text field. The employees did not have access to the project itself, so they did not see the votes of others. We also wanted to emphasize the Deviniti brand, but the standard Service Desk allowed us to do so to a limited extent. That’s why we decided to use our own app – Theme Extension. It allowed us to prepare a portal consistent with our image in every detail.

– KATARZYNA PAWLAK, PRODUCT OWNER

Jira Service Desk is a digital tool that we at Deviniti use not only in exceptional cases, such as the organization of an internal survey but above all in our daily work. Service Desk facilitates communication between employees and service departments in the company, such as human resources and finance, IT team, and marketing. By selecting the appropriate options, we can easily report the absence from work with the possibility of giving a reason, report home office, business trips, overtime work, or request to use the benefits such as multisport card or healthcare package. The Service Desk eases contact with the HR department also in case of other issues, such as a recruitment application, employee departure, annexes, demand for courses on the Udemy platform or other employee initiatives as part of the Deviniti Cares intra-company campaign.

Thanks to the Service Desk, each employee can quickly report to system administrators the need for access to e-mail, server, VPN, as well as an access card to the building or parking gate. They can also request access or permission change to internal systems. Service Desk also allows to request hardware, software, or configuration changes, but also other issues such as lack of favorite coffee or hygiene products.

Jira Service Desk also allows us to provide information about the need to issue invoices (both internal and those for a client) and to report a meeting with the client and possible need for support from the company. Despite the multitude of options, we are aware that sometimes non-standard situations appear, so we have prepared a special place for submitting ideas for improvements in the functioning of the company and for reporting all matters for which there is no appropriate form.

That’s not all. Via Jira Service Desk, all departments have the opportunity to report requests for support from the marketing department. Using the appropriate forms, each employee can request the need for promotional materials in the area of content and copywriting, web development, graphic creation, video, optimization of SEM and SEO campaigns, advertising, organization of events, webinars, gadgets, and other forms of promotion.

Deviniti employees use the Help Center every day, so it was necessary to find a solution that would facilitate their daily work and make reporting needs and requests easy, intuitive, and not consuming valuable time. The solution is Theme Extension for Jira Service Desk.

Our Jira Service Desk in Deviniti has been transformed into a larger Help Center, which now includes the 4 previously described Type Requests: Service Desk, Service Desk for the marketing department, Value Ambassadors Survey, and Service Desk of the Whistlink project.

In Deviniti we use both Card Theme and List Theme. Our main Service Desk was set using List Theme, thanks to that navigation is easy as never before. List Theme is a perfect solution for large internal Service Desks, which include a lot of different request types. Thanks to the minimalistic design, more request types can be stored on the same page. Customized categories allow us to avoid changes inside the structure of Service Desk Projects.

While creating space for Value Ambassadors Survey, we’ve decided to use Card Theme, because this solution allowed us to highlight the coherence of brand design and the tools we use. This solution brings up the better exposure of brand design, thanks to the possibility of top and bottom background customization and adding a dedicated image to cards. We illustrated each of Deviniti Value and that was a perfect opportunity to show them to the survey participants.

Jira Service Desk setup for the survey

In the case of the Value Ambassadors Survey, the goal of customization was simple. We wanted to make it as easy as possible for employees to vote by using a tool they already know, which would allow us to verify the accuracy of voting. We also wanted to show the possibility of adapting the tool to the visual concept of the brand.

Company culture is our way of functioning, which has been discovered, named, and adapted to ourselves. It is our specific language, our values, sense of humor, and many other principles of cooperation. While choosing the tool for the Value Ambassadors Survey, we wanted to focus on brand and tool coherence. The use of the Theme Extension in the Service Desk customization for the Value Ambassadors Survey turned out to be a perfect idea. The process of voting was user-friendly, intuitive, and pleasant both for employees and for me as a person responsible for conducting the plebiscite. Setting everything up is so simple that even a non-technical person could configure the settings very quickly to adjust the visual creation of the platform to individual needs.

– RENATA IWANIEC, COMPANY CULTURE MANAGER

1. To be honest, we started customization of Survey’ Service Desk from scratch. First of all, we created a dedicated Request Type for each of 6 values, that were set during the Employer & Employee Branding project.  We’ve decided to use the Card theme. Then we added two fields on each Request Form: a User Picker, which allowed to choose the person to be nominated (mandatory field) and an optional text field with space for argumentation why this person represents the given value.  
2. The next step was to customize cards. We set the dedicated pictures to each Type Request.
3. We also configured the main theme of the whole Service Desk. We customized top and bottom background.

Dividing survey categories into Request Types made it transparent and easy to use. Setting individual graphics for each value made the category selection much more intuitive. The possibility of using dedicated graphics in the Service Desk tool emphasized the consistency of the tool with the brand.

Increase employee engagement with Theme Extension for Jira Service Desk

The employees’ interest exceeded our wildest expectations. Almost 90% of employees took part in the plebiscite, which is a really great success. The Value Ambassadors Survey was a summary of what we managed to achieve in terms of what motivates us at work, how we like to work, what atmosphere and attitudes we value, and what our values are. We were able to select someone from our working environment who perfectly meets the assumptions of a given value and truly appreciate him this way!

The employees were positively surprised by this idea. They were enthusiastic about the whole idea of the plebiscite and eagerly used the opportunity to distinguish their colleagues and people they especially appreciate at work. At the same time, many people pointed to the interesting idea of using Jira Service Desk and Theme Extension tools for a purpose other than standard reporting of needs and problems.

[M Amine]

Interesting article