Working from home is certainly having its moment, and we couldn’t do it with out our good friends in IT. On the one hand, hundreds of thousands of people who never expected to work from their dining room table are making it work. It’s kind of magical when you think about it. Technology is amazing, when it works. But when it doesn’t, it can be frustrating and slow things down. But how big of an issue are IT problems?
According to The Experience 2020 Report: Digital Employee Experience Today recent report from the consultancy Nexthink, there are more problems than most people think, and the cost is much higher than you might expect.
- The average employee reports 2 IT-related delays or problems a week, wasting almost 50 hours a year. But wait…
- The report also says employees only report half of the problems they experience (if you’ve ever found yourself saying, “great the network is down but someone will fix it eventually…” this is for you,) so the number is really almost 100 hours.
- Employers and IT professionals say that employee satisfaction with their technology is 90% or better. But…
- 84% of employees believe their organizations should be doing more to improve the digital experience.
- The biggest complaints are slow boot-up times on company-issued computers, and patchy connections to VPNs and company networks
Other takeaways and findings from the research include:
- 79% of respondents agree that when IT issues are not reported, it always leads to bigger issues
- 82% view it as ‘very important’ to ‘critical’
- On average, IT departments only have approximately 56% visibility into the success of new technology roll outs, 58% visibility into adoption of the roll out, and 45% visibility into the issues impacting employees’ experiences. In other words, companies roll out tool but can’t really tell how (or if) they’re used.
- 61% of respondents agree that IT downtime is an accepted norm in their organizations
It will be interesting to see how people who used to work in the office and didn’t experience many of these problems will feel once they’ve had to try and connect to the network from the family room. Will there be an improved effort to enhance the user experience, or will we just have to get used to the same old IT problems?
This isn’t to blame the good folks in IT for all the problems—if a problem isn’t reported, how can it be fixed? And they can’t possibly monitor every user to see how well they use a tool once it’s rolled out—that requires communication from every department, and communication between the folks who supply and maintain the network and the end users. If you complain but don’t try to solve the issue, that’s on you.
Of course, let’s not forget that 80% of people use only 20% of the features of tools like WebEx or Microsoft Teams. End users certainly own a lot of that.
How are you and your team doing? Even if you’re in one of those areas where people are heading back to the office, chances are at least a portion of your team is going to continue to work remotely for the foreseeable future. Your team would be wise to take advantage of the tremendous discount we’re currently offering on our newest learning program, 12 Weeks to Being a Great Remote Teammate.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wayne Turmel
Co-Founder and Product Line Manager
Wayne Turmel is the co-founder and Product Line Manager for the Remote Leadership Institute. For twenty years he’s been obsessed with helping managers communicate more effectively with their teams, bosses and customers. Wayne is the author of several books that demystify communicating through technology including Meet Like You Mean It – a Leader’s Guide to Painless & Productive Virtual Meetings, 10 Steps to Successful Virtual Presentations and 6 Weeks to a Great Webinar. His work appears frequently in Management-Issues.com.
Wayne, along with Kevin Eikenberry, has co-authored the definitive book on leading remotely, The Long-Distance Leader: Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership. You can pre-order Kevin and Wayne’s follow-up book, The Long-Distance Teammate, now.
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