Over two thirds of office workers dread speaking to their IT department

Research by Velocity Smart Technology, investigating how IT departments are coping with a move to remote working, claims that almost half (45 percent) of office workers have had to wait longer for an issue to be resolved whilst working from home – with 73 percent going on to say they have had to wait up to an extra five hours for an issue to be fixed.

Some UK IT departments might take offence by these latest findings, and they have a case with almost half of the same UK respondents (45 percent) stating that it hasn’t taken any longer to resolve an issue whilst working remotely than it would in the office.

However, there is clearly room for improvement with over two thirds of UK office workers (69 percent) having had a negative experience with the IT department – either dreading it, feeling patronised, intimated or frustrated at the length of the time they have to wait to resolve a problem.

The results are part of the ‘Supporting Your Remote Workforce in 2021 and Beyond’ report, which surveyed 1000 office workers in the UK and 2000 in the USA.

Anthony Lamoureux, CEO of Velocity Smart Technology, said, “The results provide an insight into the pressure that IT departments have been under for the past 15 months, with many workplaces going from zero to full remote working almost overnight. This urgent demand undoubtedly led to many IT departments adopting quick-fixes out of a necessity to support their workforce, rather than putting in place a long term plan that can be scaled – which has resulted in poor experiences.”

The employee service from American IT department’s is only marginally better, with 60 percent of US office workers reporting a negative experience.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”Now is the time to invest in more robust technology to support remote workforces for the long term.”[/perfectpullquote]

In the USA however, there are larger gains to be made with more than half of office workers (52 percent) stating that they have to wait longer to get an IT problem fixed – with 76 percent of those waiting anywhere from one to five hours for a solution.

Lamoureux continues, “Now is the time to invest in more robust technology to support remote workforces for the long term. Many employees are fed up with long, gruelling commutes or have found a happy balance between home and work life and so for many businesses, this means coming to terms with the death of the traditional 9 to 5 working day and putting in place better IT provisions.”

Deloitte recently published a report on “Reimagining operating models to thrive in the new normal”, calling on business leaders to let go of long-held beliefs of how and where employees must work, and instead adapt to the ‘new normal’ way of working. Indeed, the Velocity Smart research provided ideas for future innovations that UK and USA office workers think will improve local IT support:

• Over a third of UK office workers (38 percent) would welcome round the clock telephone support from an IT technician – increasing to almost half in the USA (48 percent).
• Over three quarters of UK office workers (77 percent) would welcome a smart locker being made available at or close to their office premises to provide 24/7 IT support in the event of an IT failure – increasing to 86 percent of USA office workers.

Lamoureux concludes, “At the moment, IT teams in the UK and USA are stretched beyond the limit propping up hastily constructed remote working processes, many of which include laborious repetitive tasks such as replacing broken or ineffective IT equipment. By removing these manual repetitive tasks and automating them through wholly integrated service desk applications, IT technicians and engineers can focus on solving the employee problems, and start to repair their reputation within their respective organisations.”

Image: Velocity Smart Technology