b'IT DEPARTMENT SPECIALInterview with Director of IT Hugo SweeneyIn this Q&A, we caught up with IT Director, Hugo Sweeney to learn more about the history of our IT Department, the current innovations and how they support and protect ourbusiness .Can you give us some background information as to when our IT department was set up, why, and how its grown into the fantastic support function that we know today? Can you tell us what we have done in the past and what were When I joined the company in 1996, Kelly Groups IT set-up was fairlycurrentlyexecutingtoachievethesmoothoperationofour basic like most companies at that time.business while implementing innovative technologies? The IT team have delivered many innovative solutions over the years to I n 1995 the UK was hit with heavyassist our operational teams in achieving their contractual obligation for our clients in the most efficient, intuitive and cost-effective ways.Obviously storms which caused damage to theover time and with technological enhancements these have evolved. BT overhead poling network.One that stands out for me that was not so much a eureka moment or ThispresentedKellyGroupwithitsfirstopportunitytoan innovative App but more a strategic evolution that derived a return work with BT carrying out critical repairs to their polingon the investment made. That return came in March 2020 with infrastructure, which later allowed The Group to becomethe advent of COVID which dramatically changed the working one of BTs major suppliers. However, in order to work onlandscape as we knew it. We were able to seamlessly facilitate the this contract, one of BTs mandatory requirements was toback office and support teams to work from home. All system were have an integrated network infrastructure in place to supportalready migrated to thecloud therefore location Database application which could handle thewasirrelevantas volumesofwork,whichwaslongasaninternet non-existent in Kelly Groupconnection at the time. This became thewas available.catalystfortheformationOurdispatch of the IT Department whichcontrol teams could hasorganicallygrownanswerandmake inlinewiththecalls from their businesstohomesasif becomethetheywerein skilled team oftheoffice, professionalsagainbecause we have today. we invested in a As a department we supportcloud-based 3,500+ users daily from thecallcentre feildengineeringworkforcesolution.acrosstheUKtothebackTheKellyboard office and management teams in ourarealwaysverysupportive numerous office locations. ofinnovationsandcontinually investintheinfrastructureand systems which enables us to scale and operate at the forefront of our 1000 + industry. Testament to this is the fact we are continually working with Openreach in their beta testing phases of their innovations and Number of computers have done since 2013.17,000 +Help Desk tickets per year8 .The Networker Winter2023'