BT Global Services Certifies Technician Competencies
By Sarah Waterson, Learning and Development Team, BT Global Services

By mid-2005, more than 100 BT Global Services customer support technicians, approximately 25 percent of the service division’s workforce in the UK, will be CompTIA A+® certified. On average, each technician spends more than 150 hours in the classroom, laboratory, and on independent study to prepare for the two exams comprising the CompTIA A+ certificate. Skills validation is an important element of the service division’s drive to ensure customer satisfaction, expand business, and improve operational effectiveness.

BT Global Services is BT's business services and solutions division, serving customers worldwide from a broad Information and Communications Technology portfolio of products and services. This includes providing desktop and network hardware and software, offering IP-based e-business solutions, managing network services and systems integration, and consulting on strategic issues related to worldwide voice and data communications. BT Global services serves customers located in more than 200 countries on five continents.

In the past, BT Global Services UK established teams of technology specialists with each team focused on unique aspects of voice and data communications. The selection of a team or teams to be sent to a customer location was based on the team’s expertise and the technology issue that needed to be addressed.

As business volume expanded and technologies became more tightly integrated, BT Global Services needed to enhance specialized teams by forming multidisciplinary teams with across-the-board expertise. In theory, multidisciplinary teams would be able to solve the customer problem or to add a new capability as soon as possible after personnel arrived. This would guarantee faster speed of resolution, help to earn customer loyalty and repeat business. It would ensure that BT Global Services would be more productive and improve competitiveness. The key to the success of this strategy would ultimately rest on the broad-based knowledge resident within each multidisciplinary team.

A skills inventory showed that the BT Global Services UK was fundamentally in excellent shape to field the more flexible teams. The one area of possible concern was in PC hardware and operating systems where, in some geographical locations, the group needed to expand the number of technicians with mastery of PC hardware and operating system best practices. Basically, the group needed more overall depth of coverage in PC hardware service and support.

The multidisciplinary teams were formed in 2003. As a short-term solution to the need for skilled PC support technicians, a number of outside contactors were engaged to fill in any gaps. In terms of a long-term solution, the company considered several alternatives.

One alternative was to develop a curriculum internally and put the designated technicians through a skills upgrading programme. This do-it-from-scratch option was judged less than optimal because of the extensive time and resources required. A second alternative was to find a training provider with an established curriculum. This relatively fast solution could also be costly. Furthermore, both of these options failed to establish a skills standard that would ensure that BT Global Services technicians met the majority of customer needs.

BT Global Services looked into CompTIA A+ certification as the basis of a potential skills standard. CompTIA A+ certification is the internationally recognised certificate for PC support technicians. The best practices covered by the certification, the ongoing research that is used to maintain its validity, and the support given the certificate by the computing industry all impressed officials at BT. The more BT Global Services learned about the two CompTIA A+ exams, the more managers’ were convinced that CompTIA A+ was the skills upgrading standard the organization was seeking.

To earn CompTIA A+ certification a technician must demonstrate knowledge mastery of best industry practices in both PC hardware and operating systems. CompTIA A+ validates the equivalent of 500 hours of hands-on experience in the lab or the field. Since 1993, when the certification was launched, more than 600,000 men and women have earned CompTIA A+.

Standardising on CompTIA A+ meant that BT Global Services UK technicians would not only be trained, but they would also be certified. This would be a powerful statement to customers that BT Global Services was sending the right professionals for the need. Professional certifications inspire customer trust and confidence.

Additionally, there is a wealth of course material from which to choose. This would allow the group to select optimal materials for its needs and shorten time to implementation. Global Services would also be able to use trainers already on staff. Available curriculum and on-staff trainers would lower some of the costs and free up budget to provide technicians with state-of-the-art equipment for hands-on work. Training and certifying technicians to the CompTIA A+ standard became the solution of choice for PC technician skills upgrading.

In late 2003, eight senior technicians were selected for the first training class. Global Services wanted feedback from these seasoned professionals on how they viewed the appropriateness of the standard. This class was led by a CompTIA A+ certified instructor. Each technician had courseware and equipment for hands on lab experience. Global Services also set up an on-site centre where technicians sat for the proctored certification exams at the conclusion of each of the two five-day course, (hardware and operating systems).

The senior technicians found the amount of information covered and the exams challenging. Feedback indicated that having BT Global Services standardise on CompTIA A+ would be beneficial to customers and technicians alike. The technicians recommended that more time be allocated in order to better absorb the voluminous amount of information required. This recommendation was adopted and now each five-day class is followed by a 30 day independent-study period, which culminates in an exam. Technicians say that on average they spend more than 150 hours preparing for the exams. This includes class, lab, and self study.

Over the next year, Global Services will be measuring the effectiveness of the programme. Specifically Global Services will be looking for:

• Higher customer satisfaction
• Improved first-time fix rates
• Lower use of outside contractors
• Elevated employee morale

While the quantitative data is being collected, qualitative insights are already coming in. Technicians believe the hours spent in mastering these best industry practices and sweating through two difficult exams is well worth the effort. They identified three positive outcomes. First, they have acquired a sense of personal achievement due to the objective demonstration of skills mastery to an international standard. Second, they feel renewed pride in working for an organisation that is investing in their careers. Third, there is the recognition that certification is opening doors to new and renewed customer relationships built on trust. These are outcomes that BT Global Services can be proud of helping to produce.