How Clueless Users Lead to Long Days for Tech Pros

When you're an IT professional, you have to take the good with the bad, and, fortunately, most tech pros have adopted a half-full perspective, according to an "IT Pros Survey" recently released by SolarWinds. IT staffers continue to work long days: Many put in 20 or more overtime hours in a month, and many do so without being compensated for the extra time. And a lot of their day is spent fixing issues that users (including executives and staffers) attempt to resolve on their own, but sometimes end up making worse. Surprisingly, some IT employees also contribute to this problem. Despite this, an overwhelming majority of survey respondents said they really like—or love—what they do. Maybe it's because they realize how valued they are, or because they truly enjoy working with technology. "In 2016, we found that IT is everywhere, and end-users were expanding IT beyond the traditional four walls of their organizations," said Joseph Kim, executive vice president and chief technology officer at SolarWinds. "This required IT professionals to adopt an 'always-on' mentality. This year's key findings highlight that the trend continues, with IT pros performing their core IT responsibilities, in addition to dedicating time to educate end-users and business leaders, problem-solving for senior executives and keeping their organizations secure from the threat of security breaches." More than 160 IT professionals, managers and directors in the United States and Canada took part in the research.