“In my role, keeping the ‘lights on’ is crucial to enable colleagues to support communities across Warwickshire”
Shamrose works as ICT Operations Lead at Warwickshire County Council (WCC) and is responsible for the ICT service desk and the production services team which includes maintaining the councils network and servers. The team support colleagues across the council and answer over 150 calls every day to ensure they can fulfil their roles supporting the community.
Shamrose has led on some big changes in the organisation including moving more than 5,500 employees over to Microsoft365 – making WCC one of the first councils in the West Midlands to transition and be at the forefront of this new technology. Taking place in late 2019, Shamrose and his team were responsible for this roll out as well as introducing the entire workforce to new Surface Pro devices, all of which supported the councils ambition of making the best use of technology and having the right resources to support WCC’s priorities. The move to Microsoft365 and Surface Pro’s meant that the workforce had the best tools to get the job done and Shamrose and his team made it a priority to ensure that staff were supported along the way.
Shamrose said: “WCC has come a long way in the last 15 years, we were the first council to make the move to Google approximately nine years ago and we were then one of the first councils in the West Midlands to move to Microsoft 365. It was a fantastic opportunity to be a part of this and to support the council to be at the forefront of new technology. We were also able to share our learnings with other local authorities who came to visit us during the rollout.”
Shamrose describes the main purpose of his role at WCC as ‘keeping the lights on’ which is crucial to enable employees to support the Warwickshire community. Although the ICT team is there to support council staff, Shamrose and his team have a huge impact on the communities in Warwickshire. Shamrose said: “Everything we do in our service is directly having an impact on residents in Warwickshire. For example, we provide a high level of support to our highways team, and the Emergency Duty Team who are out and about 24/7. We also have to support care systems – there are lots of staff who rely on us and the technology they have available to them when they are out in the community.”
When the pandemic hit in March 2020, the ICT Operations team had already completed 90% of the rollout of the Surface Pro devices which meant that staff were able to work from home straight away. Shamrose and the other teams in ICT had also rolled out Microsoft365 six months before, which meant employees were already comfortable using tools such as Microsoft Teams. Shamrose said: “We were so pleased the roll out happened when it did and that it was such a success. This meant the transitioning to working from home was relatively smooth for most people in the council. We also had to make sure we were there to support people working from home who didn’t have internet at home or lived in rural areas by providing MiFi devices with data.”
Shamrose is a fantastic example of someone who has shaped his own career at the council. He initially joined WCC as project support on a 30-day contract in 2009. Shamrose said: “Joining the council on a temporary contract opened doors for me, I was able to make an impression and I soon joined as a full time employee.” Shamrose progressed onto a Team Leader and has since worked in a number of management roles. Shamrose added: “I have been lucky to work in a number of different roles, I have had a lot of great development opportunities, and I have always been supported by my managers and colleagues along the way!”
“I want to encourage more people to consider joining the ICT team at the council or other areas of the organisation as WCC as an employer is wonderful. In particularly I would like to encourage young people to think about working for the council as you get to work with so many talented people. Our ICT team has made every effort to recruit apprentices over the last 6 to 7 years. We’ve recruited two apprentices every year since 2013 and most of them are still here!
WCC gives all its employees, including Shamrose, the opportunity to develop the career they want and learn different skills. There’s nothing stopping people from going a long way at the council and contributing to the county’s success.
This is the difference you make, working at Warwickshire County Council. To view current vacancies go to www.warwickshire.gov.uk/jobs
To find out more about the Apprenticeship scheme go to www.warwickshire.gov.uk/apprenticeships