Happy IT Professionals Day. Yes, this is a thing and it happens on the third Tuesday of every September. The day was established by IT monitoring and management vendor SolarWinds to honour IT professionals who not only serve end-users but drive business outcomes through the use of technology. To commemorate this day, SolarWinds has released a study that details what Australian end-users expect from IT professionals. The study also looks at how IT professionals perceive their roles. Read on to find out more.
IT Professionals Day aims to emphasise the need for greater appreciation towards system administrators, network engineers, database administrators, information security professionals, developers, IT support technicians and all other professionals serving in IT-related roles.
SolarWinds has released the findings from its IT is Everywhere surveys that document end-user expectations and IT professionals’ changing responsibilities. Just under 490 employed end-users in Australia and 242 IT professionals globally were surveyed. Here are some of the highlights:
- 47 per cent of end-users say they use cloud-based applications — both IT-facilitated and non-IT-sanctioned — while at work.
- 52 percent of end-users say they regularly use work-related applications outside the office, on either company-owned or personally-owned devices.
- 62 percent of IT professionals say the expectation to support end-users’ personal devices connected to corporate networks is significantly greater than it was 10 years ago, while 64 percent of end-users say they expect their employers’ IT teams to ensure the performance of these devices.
- 43 per cent of IT professionals say end-users expect the same time to resolution for issues with both personal and company-owned owned devices and technology.
- 88 per cent of end-users believe IT teams at work are responsible for ensuring the performance of cloud-based applications. Around 69 per cent say they would blame their corporate IT teams if the applications don’t perform as expected.
- 65 per cent of end-users expect work-related applications used outside the office to perform at the same level as they do on-premise. End-users also expect to receive the same level of support from their employers’ IT teams for work-related applications used inside and outside of the office, even though 83 percent of IT professionals say they can only occasionally provide such support.
Are you an IT professional? Do you feel like your end-users are expecting more from you and your team than what you can realistically deliver? Let us know in the comments.
[Via SolarWinds]
Comments
4 responses to “It’s IT Professionals Day: Expectations Vs Reality”
Working in IT software development I was pulled away from my desk told to meet an employee on the other side of the campus (good 10 min walk) who was having trouble with a display.
After arriving I get an ear full about lack of support, and how important it is that all systems are working 24/7, even more so now as guests are arriving and the college image is at stake.
I push the power button on the TV and everything works as expected. Turns out turning on a TV isn’t in the employee role description, as it is computer related (aka it plugs into a wall).
I get back to my desk (roughly 45min round trip) and inform my manager of how much the company just spent on turning on a TV, including the lost productivity on my actual task. From which the Director of the college sent a company wide memo informing all staff that before calling IT a) make sure it is plugged in/turned on, b) try switching it off and on again.
In the 80s I got tracked down on vacation interstate to call the office for an urgent matter. Turns out some of the (bank trading) staff couldn’t remember the correct display resolution for their golf game. It would have taken them less than 10 minutes to go through maximum of two reboots to check the three choices, but no…
More recently I was summoned into a teleconference where there were five people looking at a blank screen. “It’s failed” I was told. I wiggled the mouse positioned between them and the screen came back on. Exit.
Yep. Even today, an out of hours phone-call and series of text-messages from an end-user who didn’t even bother to identify herself.
My Daily work life revolves around explaining to public servents that i cannot come to there house to configure their microwave as its not a system i manage, and isn’t a work related issue… only to cop the general “But if i dont get breakfast then my work day is impacted and that means its your fault and i will report you to my manager”…. while slightly exaggerated not entirely made up..
I’ll add a story of recent times for everyones amusement and exasperation.
The company I work for looks after several Medical Practices across the country.
Recently we added a feature to their Practice Management software that warns the Doctors if they are prescribing a medicine for an individual who has just had the same drug prescribed down the road.
Obviously to stop ‘Doctor Shoppers’, those wonderful drug addled individuals that feign symptoms to get the drugs they want.
Obviously they all received training, but you have to understand Doctors are very intelligent and don’t need to listen because they are smart and know everything.
After a few weeks we get all these complaints from multiple Doctors, bitching about these ‘error messages’ that regularly pop up when they are trying to prescribe – they have to close this error message to get past it and get the prescription printed out.
As you can guess many, many druggies got what they wanted..
While on Teleconference from WI to CA with 5 reputed “professors” all tenured and well funded one professor made this comment – When we code in Visual Studio, after we type the dot (period) it comes up with a list of options like “RadioButton.Clicked”. This is all DOT NET IS ABOUT.