Small businesses typically have only one professional dedicated to IT services and support. In most cases, this person is responsible for so many tasks that they are unable to identify ways to improve team productivity
In this article, we will address the main difficulties faced by "lone wolf" IT professionals in companies and some ways to improve the productivity of both the team and the IT department itself in a simple and applicable way in almost all sectors.
What are the challenges faced by IT professionals?
In the corporate environment, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises, IT professionals face several difficulties that consume their valuable time throughout the day. The vast majority are related to the behavior of other employees, primarily regarding the use of the internet and the company network. Therefore, I have listed the most common ones below.
Multiple tasks
As soon as the IT professional starts a new task, an email arrives requesting support, the phone rings, their superior calls them into a meeting, a piece of equipment malfunctions, among other tasks that must be done immediately.
Most of the time, being busy is not synonymous with productivity; it's simply an excess of tasks and low professional productivity. This isn't necessarily the employee's wish, but for various reasons, it ends up making their time extremely hectic and unproductive.
Great teams
The term "large" is compared to the presence of only one professional in the vast majority of small and medium-sized enterprises. Imagine a company with branches, containing several employees in each and numerous computers and devices connected to the internet. There are several potential points with problems and maintenance needs.
The large number of users connected to the internet within the company generates many tasks for the IT professional, especially considering the users' lack of knowledge, thus creating a need for technical support from the responsible professional.
Professionals working from home
With the pandemic, many companies have some of their employees working remotely, more commonly known as home office . However, in their homes, employees are out of physical reach of the IT professional, generating doubts on various issues such as remote access to company files, video calls, task management programs, among many other points.
If the company has only now decided to implement remote work, or for some reason was forced to adopt this work modality, the scenario can be even worse. The IT professional's task is to ensure that this entire process is carried out in the best possible way, requiring the goodwill and cognitive capacity of the employee in question, so that the implementation of home office is healthy. But, inevitably, they will have a lot of work.
Furthermore, there are security related to remote access. If it's already difficult to control access and the download of harmful files in person, imagine remotely. Users without any kind of control or protection on the internet can put the entire company's database at risk. We will see more about this below.
Lack of access control
Lack of control over internet access in the business environment is one of the major causes of extra tasks for professionals responsible for the company's technology sector.
Besides creating more work for IT, this leads to two other extremely relevant problems: data security and team productivity!
In the vast majority of security incidents or breaches, the entry point for attacks or virus installation is users who fail to identify potential risks and end up clicking on fake email or malicious links on the internet.
Furthermore, without any website blocking, it's very easy for employees to lose focus and productivity by accessing social media , for example.
You can find more information on this topic in the Internet Access Control Guide for Businesses .
Network security problems
As we've discussed many times here on the blog , the main reason for problems related to cyberattacks and security breaches in companies comes from the misuse of the internet by users. Clicking on phishing emails, fake ads, and malicious links on websites considered harmful causes a lot of headaches for the IT professional responsible for the company's data security.
Keeping employees safe from these threats is a time-consuming task, but above all, it requires understanding and common sense from employees, who, by misusing the system, cause various problems such as virus infections on devices, corrupted system files, slowed-down company networks, and in serious cases, loss or theft of sensitive and confidential company data.
How can we improve team productivity?
As we have seen throughout the text, there are several factors that lead IT professionals in small and medium-sized enterprises to become very busy, often hindering their goal of improving processes and helping the company's technology area become more fluid and automated, and also less susceptible to problems.
In the following lines, we will look at some ways to improve the productivity of teams that work directly with the internet, in the most automated way possible, making the IT professional's work less "turbulent".
Using team management tools
The basics are the first step. Solutions for optimizing team tasks are certainly one of the most effective ways to improve team productivity and, consequently, reduce the workload of IT professionals. Some of the most important solutions are:
- Backup
- Antivirus and Antimalware
- Routers and Switches
- Firewall and Internet Access Control
- Active Directory Domain Services
- Office Suite
- File Storage
- Business Email
- Corporate Communication
- Activity and Process Management
- Helpdesk and Service Management
- Video conferencing
In our IT Guide for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses , we mention several of the most common solutions to help IT professionals in their daily work. These tools work in favor of IT, helping to protect data, improve communications, and reduce support requests.
Block websites
Controlling internet access is a common practice in companies and is becoming increasingly important and necessary. It prevents employees from wasting time or losing focus on personal or unrelated work-related internet activities.
Unfortunately, this behavior is common in companies. Research indicates that employees spend only 43% of their work week on the tasks they were hired to perform; in other words, more than half of their work time is spent on tasks outside their job scope.
In addition to improving team productivity, website blocking systems significantly reduce many of the tasks generated for IT professionals due to unauthorized access, such as phishing sites, and also block the download of malware, keeping systems healthier and the company network more secure.
Remote access control
One of the biggest challenges for a company's IT department is managing remote access to company systems by employees working from home. Using a Business VPN, it's possible not only to keep the data transmitted between the company's internal network and the remote worker secure, but also to control access by setting rules, user permissions, and permitted connection times. This way, any access-related difficulties can be automated, keeping company data secure and employees more productive.
Lumiun's Business VPN is a great solution for remote access control. With full support in Portuguese and payment in local currency (R$), it has been widely used by many companies during this turbulent period, mainly due to its ease of use and the cost related to the number of users using the tool. See more information about the solution here .
In addition to remote access control, there are several solutions that somehow improve work-from-home processes and can alleviate the excessive workload of IT professionals who are working remotely. Many of these are mentioned in our Home Office Guide , which you can access or download for free whenever you want.
Conclusion
Certainly, many professionals in the technology field suffer from an excess of tasks and are constantly pressured by systems that automatically improve team productivity. However, not all of them use technology to their advantage to make their work more productive and less disruptive.
I hope this article has been a good read and has helped you identify some ways to improve this situation.
Until next time!
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