If you’re an IT admin dealing with job-related stress, you’re not alone. In the United States, things have gotten pretty bad for IT admins on the stress scale – according to a recent survey by GFI Software, more than three-quarters of IT staff in the U.S. feel stressed about their jobs. And even more, 79%, say they are looking to leave their jobs.
 
IT admins in the UK are only slightly better off – 68% say they want out of their jobs.  How did things get so bad?
 
As GFI reports, admins cite problems with management, tight budgets, and long hours for not enough pay as reasons for their stress. Clearly, something is not working when admins have so many complaints.
But should we really be surprised? In the security software industry, overly-complex systems and constant demands from users for new devices and cloud services could be a big contributor to stress levels and feelings of being over-worked.
 
Fortunately, there’s a way to reduce the stress from managing so many systems, devices, users and groups – cloud-based, cloud-managed security as a service.  Instead of complex products that require a full-time, dedicated security specialist to manage, IT managers should consider a simple, cloud-based security product can manage all of these devices and users from a single, easy-to-use web console.
 
Too often the big security vendors design their products with the enterprise in mind, so admins at small and mid-sized businesses become overwhelmed with reports that take whole teams of security specialists to analyze. We’ve seen what problems arise from complexity – in the case of the record-breaking and costly breach of Target late last year, warnings from a million-dollar security system went unheeded and the opportunity to prevent the breach was lost in a stream of alerts.
 
Target’s failure cost millions of dollars to the business and to consumers, and it eventually cost the CIO and CEO their jobs.
 
 Try toimagine how stressful that would be! Businesses and IT managers have a better choice – simplify, simplify, simplify. Their over-worked, burned-out IT admins will thank them for it.
 
written by John Zorabedian, Sophos Blog Editor
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