Do IT Admins have the worst job on the planet?
A new survey from GFI Software has served up some rather alarming findings. The results, which state that almost 80% of IT staff want to quit their jobs due to stress, have been all the rage in ITSM and support circles lately. It’s striking that arguably one of the most important functions of the modern corporation is in a state of inertia, and that its personnel are dissatisfied with what they do and how they do it.
What exactly do the survey results say?
Five points, basically –
→ 35 % of respondents miss time with their families due to work demands.
→ 1/4 have suffered stress-related illness.
→ 17 % complain of feeling in poor physical condition due to work demands.
→ Almost 1/4 respondents have had a relationship severely damaged or fail due to their job.
→ 30% feel they are the most stressed person in their social or family group.
These are alarming findings and deserve being discussed in the way that they are.
But the report doesn’t stop there. The reasons that IT staff are getting such a raw deal are also explored.
In ascending order, the biggest contributors to IT’s plight seem to be
1. Management
Singled out as the biggest contributing factor to workplace stress; with more than 1/3rd of the sample citing it as the biggest source, management has been given a significantly bad rap.
2. Long hours for less pay
The work hours for the average IT Admin are disturbing, to say the least. On average, those surveyed would work 8 1/2 hours a week over & above their stated working hours, with 23% of respondents working between 8 & 12 hours of unpaid overtime each week.
3. Miserliness in staffing & investment
The reluctance of organizations to invest in technology that might help de-stress the IT department is also contributing to the IT workers’ plight. The research states that employees at companies with more than 500 IT employees are the most content; there seems to be significant correlation of stress with staffing.
In all, the IT worker seems to be having a rather bad time of it all. And in a global economic environment of doubt and stagnation, there is little reason for an IT worker to hope for a better situation at work.
What can organizations do to remedy this?
Quoting Gary Hamel, “In most organizations, change comes in only two flavors: trivial and traumatic. Review the history of the average organization and you’ll discover long periods of incremental fiddling punctuated by occasional bouts of frantic, crisis-driven change.”
Though this isn’t a full blown crisis of the kind that Hamel is referring to, this situation can certainly become one. These are the kind of problems that bubble under the surface, never really coming out into the open. This is counterproductive for everyone involved, and that is why organizations need to take the lead and ensure that their IT staff are happy, engaged and content.
Here are three suggestions to do so –
Get agents on top of their game
Countering stress on a hands on job like IT may be one of the hardest challenges facing an organization; the reason is evident – IT as a function may be unidimensional and boring. Doing it day in and day out is a perfect recipe for disillusionment. But there are solutions. The answer may simply be to spice up the everyday things IT does – a gamified help desk for help desk agents, perhaps? Let agents compete against each other, give them incentives and challenges, let them view the points they accumulate. In short, take the boring out of the service desk.
Use the remote control
The solution to the problem of long hours spent at work is evident – get IT staff to spend less time at work and more time with family. A good part of this responsibility rests with the organization, of course, but how do organizations get them to be equally, if not more, productive? Simple, give them the tools to do so. Email Commands let agents answer directly from their mailbox & native Apps give them even more flexibility. Technology has made it easier than ever for employees to work remotely. It’s time organizations opened up to the idea.
Automatic support
For a variety of reasons, organizations sometimes have to make do with less manpower than is actually optimal. This results in an employee working harder than he should, over longer hours and getting even more stressed out. Though the solution to this situation is obviously to hire more personnel, organizations can do much to lessen the load in the absence of that option. Automating routine tasks, setting up canned responses for the more common questions, setting up and maintaining a self service portal that answers most questions for users by itself, all these can take the load off the agents. Some organizational direction towards this can take the effort a long way.
Support is mission critical in almost every organization. Being customer facing and so personal a function, organizations cannot afford to let the ball drop on the very people who make their customers smile. Which is why it is very important that the IT Admin does NOT have the worst job on the planet. And it is in organizations’ interest to ensure this.
