Understaffed, overwhelmed and overworked – these words have become too common in today’s IT landscape.
The ongoing talent shortages, industry-wide layoffs, and increasing cyber threats, have created a difficult environment for IT professionals.
From preventing breaches to troubleshooting system failures, IT teams are the unsung heroes in many organisations, ensuring business continuity, day and night. However, the relentless pace of requests and the sprawl of endpoints to manage, combined with the increasing variety of IT demands, has led to unprecedented levels of burnout. According to recent research, 93% of IT security decision-makers and CISOs cite overwhelming stress as a key factor in wanting to leave their roles.
The issue has evolved beyond IT. It’s now a business priority, with IT burnout often having a direct impact on the business. An overworked IT team is more prone to errors, increasing the risk of costly data breaches, and operational disruptions.
However, solutions such as automated endpoint management are helping IT teams regain control of their infrastructure and workloads, reducing manual, monotonous tasks, and allowing them to focus on improving processes and fuelling productivity.
Battling the Burnout Epidemic
The evolving technology landscape has become the perfect storm for IT burnout. Managing cybersecurity risk, compliance requirements, and an increasing number of endpoints has become a near-constant cycle of firefighting.
IT professionals, particularly those in high-alert environments such as network operations centres (NOC) and security operations centres (SOC), face an almost never-ending deluge of alerts and notifications. Today, IT workers can only respond to roughly 85% of the tickets they receive daily, leaving critical alerts at risk of being overlooked.
The pressure to sift through numerous alerts also slows down decision-making processes, erodes wider-business confidence, and leads to IT teams feeling helpless and unsupported. This vicious cycle can be incredibly difficult to break, contributing to high levels of burnout and consequently high employee turnover rates.
Automation: A Strategic Ally for IT Professionals
Amid growing fatigue and burgeoning burnout, automated endpoint management is invaluable in alleviating some of the burden on IT teams. By unifying tools, increasing real-time visibility, and automating repetitive tasks like patching and backup management, these solutions help IT teams regain control of their workloads, and reduce manual, monotonous tasks.
Automated endpoint management gives IT teams the resources and time to do their best work, improving consistency, reducing human error, and increasing overall operational efficiency. Ultimately, it frees up their time to focus on more strategic initiatives, helping to combat overwhelming workloads and promote productivity.
Navigating Complex Compliance Challenges
The regulatory landscape is evolving rapidly, placing additional pressure on IT teams. Managing these changes is no easy task, especially as many businesses are riddled with outdated legacy systems making compliance seem daunting.
With new frameworks such as DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) and NIS2 (Network and Information Security Directive) coming into effect, 80% of CISOs report that compliance regulations are negatively impacting their mental health.
Automation again plays a vital role in simplifying compliance. Automated endpoint management provides IT with the necessary control and security over all endpoints – including servers, laptops or PCs, and mobile devices – and is better placed to detect vulnerabilities and bottlenecks. This in turn enables more stringent and robust security policies to protect devices against potential threats.
Additionally, including backups as part of a broader endpoint management strategy gives IT teams the reassurance that data will be restored should a cyberattack or breach occur, and means organisations can get back to business as usual, quickly.
Future Proofing IT Operations with Automation
In an era of IT burnout, automation is no longer just a business investment – it’s a people investment. Organisations that strategically integrate automated solutions will streamline workflows, reduce manual workloads, and improve compliance and threat detection.
However, the benefits extend far beyond IT operations – organisations who prioritise automation, can see higher employee retention, better productivity, and greater business continuity. Automated management platforms must be seen as more than a tool – they are a trusted partner in combatting IT burnout and creating a sustainable environment where professionals can thrive, rather than just survive.
About the Author
Andre Schindler is GM EMEA and SVP Global Sales at NinjaOne. NinjaOne, the automated endpoint management platform, delivers visibility, security, and control over all endpoints for more than 24,000 customers in 130+ countries. The cloud-native NinjaOne platform simplifies endpoint management, patching, and visibility for environments at any scale. It is proven to increase productivity, reduce security risk, and lower costs. NinjaOne is obsessed with customer success and provides free and unlimited onboarding, training, and support.
