By: David Mielach, BusinessNewsDaily Staff Writer
Many people believe they have a stressful job, but a new survey
shows that information technology administrators may have it the
worst. That's because stress has caused almost 70 percent of IT
professionals to say they've consider changing careers.
Additionally, nearly 85 percent of respondents felt that this stress
affected their personal life in some way.
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Nearly 40
percent of workers reported working at least eight hours or more of
overtime a week, which averaged out to nearly 10 extra weeks of work a
year. According to href="http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/1874-social-software-business-sharing-collaboration.html">IT
professionals, the demands of their job caused them to lose sleep,
miss social functions and miss time with their kids. Additionally,
nearly one-quarter of respondents said that stress caused at work led
them to feel physically ill and one in five respondents said that they
experienced health-related issues such as high blood pressure due to
the stresses of their job.
"IT is a critical component of
a company's success, yet many small and medium-size businesses,
particularly those with between 50 and 100 employees, are not
equipping IT managers with the budget, staffing and resources they
need to be effective," said Phil Bousfield, general manager of
GFI Software's infrastructure business unit. "Not only is
this creating a high-stress environment for IT administrators to
operate in, but as evidenced by the survey results, it's also
resulting in long overtime hours and impacting their professional and
personal lives."
IT professionals were able to identify
the source of this stress easily. According to the poll, management,
tight deadlines and employees were the top three causes of stress.
Workers were most stressed in the northeast and at companies with
between 50 and 99 employees. At companies that size, nearly 85 percent
of IT professionals reported being stressed.
"href="http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/822-small-business-information-technology-staffing-budget.html">Small-and
medium-size businesses need to take these findings as a wake-up
call, and ensure their IT staff is supported, productive and armed
with the tools they need to be successful," Bousfield said.
"Doing so will deliver business value and help IT administrators
have a better work-life balance."
The information in this
survey was based on the responses of 204 IT administrators at
organizations with between 10 and 500 or more employees. The research
was conducted for GFI Software, a provider of IT solutions to
small-and medium-size businesses, by Opinion Matters.
Reach BusinessNewsDaily staff writer David Mielach at href="mailto:Dmielach@techmedianetwork.com">Dmielach@techmedianetwork.com.
Follow him on Twitter @D_M89.
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