Managed services offer relief for productivity-sapping IT problems and stressed-out IT teams.
Providing IT support for remote and hybrid workforces is a significant challenge for most organizations. Resource-strapped IT teams say they are spending significantly more time and manpower supporting remote workers.
Most organizations had some remote and hybrid workers even before the pandemic, but now it has become the predominant model. IT professionals say their workloads have increased since the rise of remote work, and their stress levels have risen due to the pressure to respond rapidly to support issues. In a recent ESG study, 65 percent of U.S. help desk staff said they’re stressing and facing burnout. As a result, many IT staffers are considering a career change.
In an IDC study, 44 percent of organizations ranked support as their top IT challenge related to remote work, followed by inconsistent technology across remote and onsite workers (37 percent) and the security of home networks (36 percent). The ESG study found that remote support is the dominant IT workload for 96 percent of organizations.
IT Issues Plague Remote Workers
Many employees want the flexibility to work remotely at least part of the time, and most report greater productivity when they’re freed from office distractions. However, remote workers also report that they are experiencing more downtime while waiting for help with recurring technical issues.
Because they are no longer working with office technology that is regularly maintained by the IT team, remote workers encounter technology issues they can’t resolve themselves. Meanwhile, IT staffers often have little to no knowledge of the technology at-home workers are using.
Results from multiple industry studies illustrate the challenge of long-distance support:
- The average remote worker has experienced more than 200 technology problems while trying to do their job from home.
- Nearly half of remote workers in the U.S. report that they’ve had to wait at least three hours or more to resolve an IT issue.
- About 60 percent of remote workers report having a negative experience with the IT department when seeking support.
The result is reduced productivity and increased frustration at both ends.
Why Remote Support Is Problematic
Remote support is not a new process — IT teams have long been able to use remote administration tools to take control of a remote computer to diagnose and resolve problems. However, few IT teams have the resources or operational procedures needed to support mass numbers of remote and hybrid workers.
Additionally, some problems simply can’t be corrected without the hands-on involvement of tech support. It’s impossible to replace or repair failed hardware remotely, and it can take days to get replacement parts, schedule the service and restore functionality. Nobody can afford that kind of downtime. Organizations need well-defined processes for regularly refreshing remote equipment and streamlining the repair and maintenance of devices under warranty.
The growing IT talent gap exacerbates these issues. Organizations are struggling to find enough skilled IT pros to handle day-to-day administrative and support tasks. Few professionals want to remain on the support team forever, and IT pros are constantly getting job offers from other organizations. Support staff often leave to accept tantalizing offers for jobs working on career-building projects.
A Helping Hand
Going forward, organizations of all sizes will need qualified IT experts with specialized skill sets to support hybrid environments with both in-house and remote technology. Many organizations are working with managed services providers (MSPs) who have the manpower and expertise to augment company IT staff.
In addition to handling basic IT functions such as maintenance, updates and security patching, MSPs typically offer network monitoring and maintenance as well as more specialized services such as managed security. Best-in-class MSPs also provide unlimited help desk support and give workers access to on-call experts who can rapidly resolve a wide range of issues.
A qualified MSP can meet the needs of remote and hybrid employees by providing around-the-clock support for workers who may work outside regular business hours. The right MSP will tailor a solution to specifically address the organization’s remote support challenges.
Remote work is here to stay, and many organizations need to bolster their IT support processes to maximize productivity and user satisfaction. Partnering with an MSP can help ensure prompt delivery of expert support while relieving the burden on the in-house IT team.
