Celebrating our unsung heroes
in IT

Think about everything that goes into an enterprise-wide transition to remote working. Work devices need to be distributed and authorized. Wide area networks need to be optimized and made secure. Cloud applications need to be available essentially everywhere, with high performance assured regardless of an employee’s internet connection. Your IT team made all this happen through long hours and quick thinking, enabling you and your employees to be productive even during a global pandemic.

But all this productivity and achievement came at a cost. 77 percent of IT teams have reported high stress levels since social distancing began, and their levels of mental distress have been higher than even those who are unemployed during the crisis. Your IT team has shouldered a lot of extra work because they knew your organization was depending on them. They went above and beyond to equip us for success and to fix technology problems that might have disrupted our work—and for that, IT workers deserve our heartfelt thanks.

Three ways to support digital wellness for IT staff

Even as we hear good news about coronavirus vaccines that may help reopen shared offices, IT staff still face a long road ahead. This means our IT teams need more than a public “thank you.” They need company leaders to look for new ways to support their digital wellness over the coming months. Here are three ways you can better enable your IT team:

1. Recognize IT teams’ sacrifice and listen to their needs. Transparency in communication is always vital for company leaders, especially when your IT team has been working hard. Begin by asking IT managers and employees how you can better support their mental health during and after work hours. This not only shows you recognize how hard they’ve been working, but also that you value their input on what they need to keep performing at a high level.
2. Elevate IT administrators to become company decision makers. A huge part of empowering your IT team toward greater wellness is increasing their feelings of agency. This means giving IT a place at the table when high-level decisions are made in your organization. For example, be sure to include IT leaders when you choose what new technology to adopt, decide how employees will be trained to use new tools, and determine your quarterly budgets for company resources.
3. Prioritize balanced work. There are only so many hours in a day, and your IT teams can’t spend too many of them “always on” without facing burnout. Make it clear to both IT workers and other employees that your organization values balance between focused work time and open whitespace hours. This ensures your employees have set times in the workday to unplug and think instead of always shifting to the next task.

Make digital wellness a priority for everyone

The ongoing pandemic will continue to challenge and surprise us. Even as we celebrate the contributions of IT workers, it is just as important to communicate to all employees that we are in this together. The more your organization can prioritize digital wellness for every employee, the more we can move forward during this difficult time as a team. This will help everyone thrive and grow by appreciating and supporting each other toward a happier future.

For more information about how IT leaders are navigating the rapid changes in the wake of Covid-19, see these Pulse survey results.