One IT administrator for more than 100 users?

Work-related stress leads to low-quality support and frequent staff turnover in IT departments

 PRAGUE, September 7, 2017 – According to GFI Software, a provider of security solutions for enterprise networks, technical support is very often underestimated in many businesses and organizations. This places high demands on IT administrators, increases their work-related stress and, in extreme cases, results in lower-quality technical support or turnover among IT staff. One option for companies with limited IT budgets is to increase productivity with the help of integrated technical tools for ensuring IT security.

According to this year's survey by GFI Software, in 48% of businesses, one IT support employee is responsible for more than 100 users, and in 28% of businesses, even for more than 150 users. In 37% of businesses, one IT employee serves 30–100 users, while in only 15% of businesses does an IT administrator look after fewer than 30 users. A high workload is a source of stress for IT professionals in both their work and personal lives – according to one of GFI Software's earlier surveys, as many as two-thirds of IT administrators consider leaving their jobs as a result of stress.

Based on these findings, GFI Software recommends:

• Increasing the degree of automation of routine tasks, such as patch management, which will improve the security level of enterprise networks and make work easier for IT staff;
• Providing users with tools enabling self-service handling of common requests, such as finding a lost email in the archive, etc.;
• Ensuring a centralized overview of enterprise networks, devices and user activities, both in real time and with the ability to create statistical reports for a defined period;
• Deploying integrated solutions covering multiple areas of IT infrastructure protection, with easy and convenient management through a unified administrator console.

 

“IT administrators in SMB companies are caught between two millstones – ever-increasing security risks caused particularly by ransomware, and the growing number of users and devices they have to take care of,” said Zdeněk Bínek, responsible for sales of GFI Software solutions in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. “It is therefore essential to invest more in technical solutions that, thanks to automation and ease of use, enable IT administrators to handle a large number of tasks while ensuring the required level of IT security.”

Recognizing that SMB companies cannot afford IT budgets comparable to those of large corporations, GFI Software has offered integrated enterprise network protection solutions since this year, whether GFI OneConect or GFI OneGuard. Both comprehensive solutions offer ease of use and a perfect overview for both enterprise IT administrators and providers of external managed services.