Nearly three quarters of workers may know how to contact IT but choose to use another method, according to a survey by online meetings and collaboration software vendor GoTo.
Some 55% of respondents told GoTo that they avoid reaching out to IT until they absolutely must — while 72% of workers in the US survey said that although they know how to contact IT they choose to use “another method” of finding a solution.
“Nearly one in four — 23% — feel guilty about reaching out to IT,” according to GoTo.
“Gen Z or Millennials feel the guiltiest about reaching out to IT, but it turns out they reach out more than any other demographic. Maybe these ‘digital natives’ speak TikTok and Instagram, but Office 365, collaboration tools, and business technologies are a different ballgame.”
The vendor said its research suggested that people in general just want resolution quickly and aren’t thinking about IT process or workflows. Technologies should give IT what they need in a format or on a platform that is intuitively part of an employee’s existing workflows, it added.
“Half of employees would rather spend their own time trying to resolve their IT issues themselves, and more than a third (36%) will just work around the issue,” GoTo said.
About one in four indicated they felt it wasn’t easy to get in touch with IT, with remote workers more likely to say this. Overall, about one in four report they contact IT at least once every week.
Many people said they prefer to try to figure out a solution on their own, without getting in touch with IT. Although many said they had no complaints, some said they would rather go to the dentist than contact their IT team.
According to GoTo, reaching out daily could be about a perceived inability to handle technology, defaulting to IT as the problem solvers versus having a practical self-service portal or tool — which might be preferred by many respondents.
“Weekly callers likely spend a little time troubleshooting until they can’t solve an issue, then create a ticket or reach out to IT, and get their problem resolved in relatively short order,” it said.
Of course, GoTo makes many tools that can help facilitate interactions between IT and the rest of an organisation’s team — such as GoTo Meeting and GoTo Training.
The company also in September acquired Miradore, a maker of cloud-based mobile device management (MDM) software targeting SMBs.
According to GoTo, the deal builds on several updates to GoTo’s IT support and management portfolio, including remote management and monitoring (RMM) capabilities and enhancements to GoTo Resolve targeting managed services providers (MSPs).
( Photo by Elisa Ventur on Unsplash )
