IT problems are having a tangible impact on productivity for organisations in the UK.
In fact, nearly half (48%) of employees lose at least an hour a month to IT problems, with an average 1.2 hours (73.15 minutes) lost; rising to 77.2 minutes for workers in the public sector.
The wider knock-on effect is that IT problems cause the UK to lose £4 billion worth of productivity each year 1.
The scale of the problems may come as a surprise to some employers. As the research shows that although 95% of workers had IT issues at work, more than half (65%) of workers had reached out to support/service desks about their problems.
This raises the possibility of a workforce that is at least as IT “savvy” as the support team, but there is also the real possibility of poor advice or simply carrying on despite the problems.
Indeed, more than a third (34%) of those who reported an issue to IT support stating that the response was ‘not good'.
As many (32%) thought it would take too long to fix the problem, while a quarter (25%) simply carried on without resolving the problem; clearly impacting employee productivity.
One way to pick up on the increasing skills of users and improve the quality of IT support offered is to encourage self-service, where possible.
The fact that many workers have similar devices for personal use means they are already used to tackling some issues on their own.
Meaning many workers should be relatively confident following this approach.
Almost half (48%) of workers reported that their employer has implemented self-service tools that allow them to support themselves, rather than having to call upon IT support teams.
This finding is echoed in our 2018 survey of 200 CIOs, where almost two thirds (64%) of CIOs stated they planned to implement self-service functionality.
While just over a third (38%) have actually used self-service IT support, 10% of respondents said they are aware of the fact that they exist but are not using them. With 16% reporting that they have used self-service tools, but that they did not help to resolve a problem.
Clearly, employers must work to improve the standard of self-service IT support and then encourage greater employee uptake.