Tier 1 HR Applications Help Desk Lead

Job Requisition: Tier 1 Human Resources Applications Help Desk Lead

Location: Washington, DC (currently onsite - biweekly)

Customer: Department of State

Salary Range: Please provide your salary requirement

Clearance: Secret

The Tier 1 Human Resources Applications Help Desk Lead provides day-to-day leadership and operational oversight for a team of three Tier 1 Help Desk Specialists supporting Human Resources applications and systems. This position serves as the first-line operational lead responsible for ensuring exceptional customer service, timely incident resolution, workload management, and compliance with Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

The Help Desk Lead coordinates daily activities, monitors ticket queues, assigns workloads, mentors team members, and serves as the primary escalation point for complex customer issues while working collaboratively with Tier 2 support teams, application owners, User Security Administration, infrastructure teams, and program management.

The ideal candidate possesses excellent customer service skills, exceptional organizational and multitasking abilities, and outstanding verbal and written communication skills necessary to support a fast-paced enterprise Human Resources environment.

At this time full-time on-site at the customer site in NW District of Columbia biweekly is required
. Every other week the team has been teleworking. A request to full-time on-site may be required in the future.

• Lead and coordinate the daily activities of a three-person Tier 1 Human Resources Applications Help Desk team.
• Monitor team workload and distribute assignments to ensure timely response and resolution.
• Provide coaching, mentoring, and on-the-job training to Help Desk Specialists.
• Ensure consistent adherence to established Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
• Monitor staffing coverage to maintain required service hours.
• Conduct quality reviews of customer interactions and ticket documentation.

• Deliver exceptional customer service while supporting enterprise Human Resources applications.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for escalated Tier 1 customer issues.
• Ensure incidents are acknowledged, prioritized, and resolved in accordance with established SLAs.
• Communicate professionally with customers throughout the incident lifecycle.
• Build positive working relationships with internal customers across multiple organizations.
• Promote a customer-first culture within the Help Desk team.

• Oversee daily Service Now ticket queues and workload distribution.
• Ensure incidents are properly categorized, prioritized, documented, and routed.
• Monitor aging tickets and proactively address potential SLA violations.
• Coordinate escalations to Tier 2 support, application development teams, or system owners.
• Verify ticket quality, completeness, and accurate documentation before closure.
• Support incident trend analysis and recommend process improvements.

Provide Tier 1 support for Human Resources applications including:

• User account support
• Password assistance
• Application access requests
• Role-based permissions
• Basic troubleshooting
• System navigation assistance
• User onboarding support
• General HR application questions

• Monitor Help Desk metrics and team performance.
• Generate operational reports and dashboards.
• Track SLA compliance and identify improvement opportunities.
• Analyze ticket trends and recurring issues.
• Support continuous process improvement initiatives.
• Provide regular status updates to management.

Work closely with:

• Tier 2 Help Desk
• User Security Administration
• Application Development Teams
• HR Information Systems (HRIS)
• Infrastructure Support
• Program Management
• Government stakeholders
• Other contractor support teams

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Business Administration, Human Resources, Information Systems, or a related discipline.
• Equivalent professional experience may be substituted for education.

• 5+ years of Help Desk or IT customer support experience.
• Minimum 2 years leading or supervising a Help Desk team.
• Experience supporting enterprise Human Resources applications.
• Experience using Service Now or comparable IT Service Management (ITSM) platform.
• Experience working in a fast-paced, customer-focused support environment.
• Experience managing competing priorities and multiple simultaneous tasks.

• Outstanding customer service and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to remain professional under pressure.
• Strong conflict resolution skills.
• Commitment to delivering a positive customer experience.

• Ability to motivate and coach staff.
• Strong organizational and workload management skills.
• Ability to prioritize competing demands.
• Effective decision-making skills.

• Excellent verbal communication skills.
• Excellent written communication skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with technical…