The pandemic has caused a rush towards digital transformation that is taking its toll.
When the COVID-19 hit least year, it caused an earthquake in the world of technology. Companies rushed to adapt to the “new normal” of cloud-based operations, remote working and other transformative changes caused by the pandemic.
In this battle to rethink and restructure their businesses, IT professionals became the essential front-line workers. Suddenly, they needed to not only reorganize productivity and collaboration platforms, they needed to move operations to the cloud and enable remote working. And on top of all this, they needed to design and enforce new security requirements for people working from home who had never had to think about such things before.
The complexity of digital transformation is causing stress
According to a new survey from AppDynamics, IT teams are facing more complexity and more stress on the job. The study shows that a strong majority of IT professionals are feeling the strain of coping with the speed of change demanded due to the pandemic.
This latest survey was conducted through December 2020 and January 2021. AppDynamics surveyed 1,050 IT professionals around the globe, in organizations with a turnover of at least $500 million. Respondents worked across a range of industries, including IT, financial services, retail, public sector, manufacturing and automotive and media.
The study found that 75% of IT pros believe their response to the pandemic has created more IT complexity than they have ever experienced previously. Moreover, as 83% say their own job has become more complex over the last year.
“In 2020, technologists implemented innovation projects at break-neck speed,” the report says. The result is that 89% of respondents said they feel under immense pressure at work. Almost the same number (84%) say they have difficulty switching off from work. This may be because almost as many (81%) say that they feel increased frustration about their work.
Technologists must overcome challenges, conflicts to move forward
Under pressure as they are, many IT professionals are finding themselves at odds with co-workers. Two-thirds of respondents (63%) reported that they had seen increased levels of conflict with colleagues during 2020.
AppDynamics crystallizes the situation in the introduction to their report. “In 2020, technologists implemented innovation projects at break-neck speed as their organizations reacted to the global COVID-19 pandemic,” they state. “As a consequence, many IT teams are now managing an IT landscape fraught with new challenges, overwhelming data noise and crippling complexity.
“How they respond to these challenges will be critical to the future success of many global enterprises,” they conclude.
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