Article by P. Galen
Many CIOs have real ongoing operational issues that cause them to lose sleep. One of the main sources of stress for an IT professional stems from the great responsibility they shoulder.
In many cases they lack the proper staff and dedicated resources to properly battle the daily IT disruptions that occur in their growing digital organizations.
In effect they are at times responsible for technology budgets, servers, applications, and IT staff that are outside their direct control - this leads to stress and often sleep deprivation.
This scenario is depicted in Robert Half Technology's new report -- "The CIO Insomnia Project". The report indicates that data security is the primary worry keeping CIOs up at night. CIOs are often reliant upon a third party via the cloud to manage important corporate digital assets.
Are the digital assets properly secured by the vendor they contract with? They just can not be 100 percent sure given all of the recent high profile breaches at companies like Amazon and Citigroup.
In the recently released survey of more than 1,400 U.S. CIOs, Robert Half found that information security is the number one concern among 24 percent of CIOs, followed by hardware and/or operating systems upgrades, with 13 percent of the response.
Heavy workloads (10 percent), sufficient budgets to fund projects (10 percent) and keeping pace with technology innovation (9 percent) also were ranked as top concerns by CIOs.
In addition, 63 percent of CIOs said that understaffing at least somewhat affects their organizations' ability to implement innovative technologies.
The survey also found that some CIOs are paying more attention to retention, admitting that staffing limits have placed a heavier burden on IT employees who have taken on additional responsibilities as a result of the recession.
It is about time as I know that many IT workers have not had a cost of living increase in more than three years and have be constantly face with a real possibility of losing their job through this recession.
Also, Thirty-four percent of CIOs indicated they are somewhat or very concerned about losing top IT performers to other job opportunities in the next year, while 65 percent said they are not concerned at all.
But Robert Half suggests CIOs who aren't concerned about losing workers should be. Another survey by Robert Half indicates that nearly 40 percent of workers say the recession has made them more open to other job opportunities when the economy turns around.
And why would they not be? All IT workers, especially the talented ones with high demand skills such as web programming, app development, and systems administration are always looking for a better opportunity elsewhere.
As an IT worker or CIO, what keeps you up at night?
Cross-posted from CIO Zone
