The GWO helpdesk lies at the heart of the GWO user community. Its six coordinators handle over 7700 enquiries annually from all over the world. Volumes of enquires to the helpdesk have grown for a variety of reasons. Luckily, smarter solutions such as online FAQs, ‘how to’ videos and the GWO website’s helpbot continue to solve some common questions and lighter challenges the GWO community faces. All the better to help coordinators focus on their core role; managing compliance.
Last year was another busy year for the co-ordinators. I think most of the team agree it flew by. Our core role on the helpdesk is supporting compliance across the GWO community. This means we aren’t always able to give the positive news enquirers want, but responding fairly and politely is a baseline for us. There’s always plenty of smiles and chances to share some fun with enquirers.
Unfortunately the long effects of the pandemic continued to overshadow our work in 2021 both personally and from increased workloads. A common enquiry concerned understanding certification renewals and clarification around our Covid Advisory Notes. The roll out of our WINDA 3.2 platform update also added to workload. The WINDA update and tighter audit reporting requirement enhanced the way we review community relationships so we look a lot deeper at how auditors are delivering on GWO requirements.
Sometimes the challenges of the coordinators job can become a little more far-reaching, for example contacting the community following a complaint and building the evidential base for our Investigations Team. A tough skin can sometimes be needed, but I’m pleased to say people often respond positively for a job well done in ensuring fairness.
We’ve continued to build on GWO library of video tutorials. Many common questions about completing registrations are handled here ready wherever and whenever you need them.
We get many questions about WINDA passwords, how to change them and retrieve them. Our FAQs give clear guidance fast.
GWO’s WINDA platform is only configured for Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome browsers. Switching to these browsers to view WINDA and possibly going ‘incognito’ (which disables some extensions and cookies) happily fixes many accessibility annoyances.