More than half of British IT staff frustrated by nasty network surprises

IT staff across the UK confessed to their biggest frustrations in the workplace. The top two issues being networks unexpectedly failing with no warning (63%) and end-users reporting problems before IT even knew about them (54%).

“As the guardians of technology, IT staff don’t like being caught unaware. But often problems are difficult to predict in advance,” said Martin Hodgson, Country Manager for UK and Ireland at Paessler. “Many issues can originate from the users themselves, with them failing to read instructions or not reporting minor challenges that then grow into much bigger issues.”

But, when technology and networks do run smoothly, there is little appreciation for the work that IT staff do for their business. Almost half of those surveyed said that they are disappointed by a lack of appreciation or understanding for what they do (46%). This lack of appreciation is a much bigger issue than in other countries around the world. For example, in the US, IT staff were 10% less likely to complain about this lack of appreciation, with 36% of staff reporting feeling underappreciated.

According to Martin, “The best running networks are ones that are proactively managed – those where potential issues can be easily identified and addressed before they become major challenges or nasty network surprises. End-users don’t really know what goes on behind the scenes, and the admins role is only really made apparent when something goes wrong. This could explain why around 4 in 10 admins feel underappreciated. Perhaps we should all make an effort to make them feel more appreciated.”