IT self-service will increase technological efficiency in enterprises. The availability of portable technology and the Internet at home has allowed the entire workforce to move toward flexible work patterns in the wake of Covid-19. If we had faced this pandemic 20 to 25 years ago, we would not have been able to shift operations so easily.
But this total shift to remote work is not without its challenges. It is now more important than ever that the communications and connectivity infrastructure is functional and up and running to avoid lost productivity due to downtime. And we are likely to see more remote work in a post-pandemic world, with two-thirds of Generation Z and Millennial workers seeking permanent work at home according to consulting firm Deloitte.
To help ensure that remote working is a success, IT teams must now empower users to manage their home IT configurations themselves as much as they can. Troubleshooting near the user will be key to ensuring accessibility and connectivity when working remotely.
User IT proactivity is the new normal
With remote working likely to remain the norm in the future, we are likely to see much more user proactivity when it comes to IT troubleshooting.
Companies will begin to train and help remote workers identify how to gain their knowledge and discover, at a basic level, where things may be going wrong to fix the problem themselves. Some common examples of easily solvable problems are video conferencing falling apart on the user side rather than problems with the corporate platform. Also, it is often not possible to connect to corporate systems, not because the VPN doesn’t work, but because users accidentally change the configuration or fail to update it regularly.
Companies should empower remote workers to do their due diligence and resolve issues with tools at their disposal when possible. Users can access a Web portal to connect to office systems and see if internal systems are up and running; Individuals can gain their type of monitoring expertise. It may only be surface level, but it adds a bit of proactivity and helps users know where they stand or what they need to do in their troubleshooting capacity.
Also, with IT security, companies need to make sure that there is no choice but good behavior when it comes to cybersecurity. The default systems that people use, with BitLocker encryption, secure systems in the Cloud, and encryption in SharePoint spaces for working on active documents, can ensure that it’s nearly impossible to not be secure.
What keeps admins up at night?
We’re likely to see a continuation of frustrations around remote work issues in the coming months. In surveying IT users in 2020, we found that the biggest challenges were connectivity issues for employees working from home. In second place was access to video conferencing technologies. Some of the reasons for these challenges are that remote workers ignore best practice methods for the sake of speed or users fail to sort out software updates on time or don’t invest in signal boosters to help with connectivity if they are far away from a router; It is often quite difficult to get users to change bad habits like these.
There will now be a greater call for improved IT monitoring as people expand the types of software they use. Newly introduced software will require a new set of monitoring to ensure that problems such as downtime are avoided, and we will see IT administrators training users to handle these problems themselves. Administrators already have many tools to monitor basic connectivity, such as sharing a traffic light-like view of service availability with users. These can help users resolve for themselves whether the problem lies with IT or their national ISP.
What’s next for IT self-service?
IT self-service is destined to become increasingly normal in the remote work landscape. Many IT teams operate service desks with a traffic light policy, but we are likely to see an increase in IT team training or providing tools for users to resolve non-urgent requests on their own.
Taking the pressure off the IT service desk will allow IT, managers, to focus on keeping core technology and communication tools up and running. Training manuals, video tutorials, and open forums at service desks to gather information on popular solutions can help here.
Developing this kind of proactivity will be key to remote work becoming the norm. Isolated workers also need to develop their level of oversight and technology literacy for their own sake; A laborious exchange of messages via email or chat can be an inefficient use of time for both the IT administrator and the user, so self-service can be a great way to ensure time savings and increased productivity.
