Top 10 IT Pain Points and How to Solve Them

The more important tech becomes to business, the more companies rely on their IT departments. As these workers play increasingly crucial roles, they often find themselves facing new challenges as well. The modern workforce is full of pain points for IT professionals.

A 2018 report revealed that 45% of IT workers feel stressed, and that’s before a pandemic disrupted everyone’s workflows. Pressure is rising for IT teams, but there are solutions for all of these problems.

Here’s a closer look at the top 10 IT pain points and how to solve them.

1. Management Doesn’t Understand IT Needs

Perhaps the most common pain point for IT departments is a lack of understanding between them and management. As cybersecurity and digital services play a more critical role in companies, IT teams’ needs grow and shift. Management doesn’t always understand these needs, leading to shrunken budgets, time crunches, or other issues.

Work OSs can help mitigate this problem by providing insight into workloads and requests. Easy-to-navigate tables, charts, and analytics reveal when IT teams may need more time or funding in one area or if one workflow isn’t working. Management can then make more informed, helpful decisions.

2. Communication Is Challenging

Successful IT operations depend on clear communication. IT workers need to inform others about security concerns or software updates, and others need to ask IT about problems they encounter. With one in four Americans now working remotely, that communication isn’t always easy.

To solve this problem, companies need clear and organized digital communication services. Finding a work OS that supports live chats and video calls to help aid remote conversations. Similarly, automated request forms ensure nothing gets lost in the noise, letting IT workers respond to any questions.

3. There’s Not Enough Time to Complete All Requests

With only eight hours in the standard workday, IT workers don’t always have enough time to handle everything on their plate. Other departments or management may not understand this crunch and pile requests on already-overworked IT departments. As technology needs keep rising, this becomes a more frequent issue.

With an OS that incorporates your team's projects and calendars, it’s easier for everyone to see what other workers already have on their schedule. This transparency helps distribute tasks more evenly, stopping requests from piling up. Efficiency gains from streamlined workflows also help IT workers complete more in a day.

4. Remote Workers Are Hard to Secure

Cybersecurity has been a relevant concern for years, but the work-from-home revolution has heightened these issues. Personal devices can be a security vulnerability when connected to company systems and data. They’re also harder to secure, since IT workers can’t install and update security solutions on them themselves. (Read also: Cybersecurity Concerns Rise For Remote Work.)

Using a work OS, like monday.com, which is compliant with international security standards and offers controls like session management, can mitigate these risks. Other steps, like adopting zero-trust infrastructure and requiring two-factor authentication, further improve remote worker security.

5. Everyone Thinks They’re an IT Expert

As tech becomes more prominent in work and daily life, people become more accustomed to it. As a result, IT teams often have to deal with other workers who think they’re also tech experts. This, in turn, can lead to complacency and ignorance, creating security risks. (Read also: Computer Science and Information and Communications Technology: What's the Difference?)

One way to manage this problem is to restrict controls, so everyone handles their area of expertise and nothing else. If anyone wants to make an IT-related decision, they’ll have to reach out to IT to do it. Workflow systems that enable this segmentation will prevent risks and ensure experts handle everything they should.

6. The Company Uses Too Many Different Tools

Digital disruption is a popular goal for businesses, but many companies don’t take an organized approach to it. Businesses frequently adopt a wide variety of digital tools that may or may not work together. Having to bounce between them all can slow IT teams down.

The solution here is for companies to look for tools that integrate with existing solutions. monday.com, for example, integrates with dozens of popular tools, like Slack and Microsoft Teams. The more a system supports, the less painful IT’s work will be.

7. Management’s Goals Don’t Align With Operational Goals

Company leaders often have lofty goals for their future IT operations. In many cases, these aspirations are more in line with business buzzwords than what’s relevant for the company. This disconnect can create confusion and frustration for IT teams.

The answer to this misalignment is clearer communication. Managers need a better understanding of IT operations, and IT staff need to showcase relevant and viable ways to improve. More transparent workflows and decision-making processes that involve more stakeholders can help.

8. Estimating Project Times Isn’t Always Easy

IT issues are frequently more complicated than they appear at first. Consequently, it can take far longer to complete a project than workers first thought. This can lead to inaccurate estimates, which disrupt workflows and can disappoint clients or co-workers.

Flexible, adaptive workflows mitigate the impact that unexpected changes have. When teams can see the big picture of everyone’s workload, they can shift responsibilities and projects around to account for anything running long or short. Software that enables real-time updates for these changes further lessens the disruption of these changes.

9. Onboarding New Workers Takes Too Long

Technology has the highest turnover rate of any sector, at 13.2%. With so many IT workers moving in and out of a company, many departments suffer from slow onboarding processes. Getting new workers accustomed to company systems takes time, hindering IT teams’ productivity.

The more straightforward an IT management platform is, the quicker onboarding will be. Work OSs like monday.com simplify workflows to help new hires get the hang of things faster. Performance metrics and progress tracking make it easier for managers to see where new hires are in their professional development and guide them.

10. Expectations Are Rising While Budgets Fall

Amid widespread digitization and rising cybercrime, IT teams are more important to businesses than ever. At the same time, 62% of surveyed organizations plan to tighten their IT budgets in 2021. As a result, many IT workers find themselves having to do more with less.

Outsourcing some processes can help IT teams accomplish more with reduced budgets. Similarly, automation can let smaller IT departments handle more without having to hire extra workers. Having a transparent, easy-to-understand record of all of a team’s responsibilities, accomplishments, and needs could help persuade management to increase budgets.

Better IT Management Starts With Better Software

Working in IT can be stressful, but there are many ways to alleviate that. Embracing software solutions can fix many of these common issues, letting IT teams reach their full potential. When these workers can handle their responsibilities better, the entire company benefits.