Three fifths of IT administrators want out, but that's better than last year
Summary: A survey on IT stress factors also found that one out of five IT professionals report stress-related health issues as a result of their jobs.
A recent survey of IT professionals found that 57 percent would consider leaving their jobs due to workplace stress. Believe it or not, this is an improvement from 67 percent who were ready to call it quits last year.
That's the finding of a survey of 207 IT administrators, released by GFI Software, which delved into the stressors that weigh on their jobs these days.
What's causing the stress? Their bosses.
Nearly one third of those surveyed, 29 percent, cited dealing with managers as their most stressful job requirement. The other top sources of workplace stress for IT managers are a lack of IT staff and tight deadlines, with 24 percent and 20 percent of respondents, respectively, citing these as primary contributors to their stress levels.
Interestingly, users are the smallest source of stress, contributing to the stress level of 12 percent of IT admins.
There are repercussions on respondents' health
More than one fifth, 21 percent, said that IT administrators have suffered stress-related health issues – such as high blood pressure – due to their work. This number remains unchanged from last year.
In addition, another 20 percent indicated that they "do not feel great physically" as a result of stress. Another 34 percent of respondents "have lost sleep due to work". Fortunately, this is an eight-point drop from 42 percent last year.
Wait, there's more: Another 16 percent revealed that they have experienced a strained or failed relationship due to work stress.
The stressful workloads IT admins face also results in long hours
Nearly one third of those surveyed work more than eight hours of overtime each week in order to keep on top of their workload. That is the equivalent of working more than 10 weeks a year in overtime.
IT executives need to take heed of these reports, as the success if their ventures depends on the people who make it all happen.
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Talkback
Nah
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Being "talentless" doesn't prevent you from unloading, unboxing, imaging and deploying hundreds of workstations by yourself. As an example of a task most junior techs or lonesome admins are asked to perform.
Huge workloads don't just mean typing away at lines of codes in an administrators job. You often have several projects going on at once that need technical and financial documentation, you need to maintain good relationships with sales reps, account managers and engineers all over the country. New equipment needs to be rolled out, old equipment needs to be decommissioned. Meanwhile you keep a watchful eye on a vast array of networking and server equipment to make sure the whole team can do their daily job..... then there's the users computers and devices.
All of this is constant day-to-day business for your average admin.
The biggest hurdles to any sysadmins job is micro-managing bosses and immense physical+mental workloads. Alot of this has to do with ignorance from the 'suits' - some of which have never worked in an environment that has an I.T department and are themselves unsure of your role.
For all admins struggling, this book helped me out alot in communication and time-management. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596007836.do
wrong entries
IBM
Hmmmm