Four Ways to Be More Productive and Not Drown in Tickets

Family barbecues, video games, and that admired-from-afar backyard hammock. 

We all want to get there, but work is crazy busy right now.

Remote and hybrid work environments are definitely here to stay. And according to Money Magazine, remote workers are working longer hours — spending 10% more time online each week than before the pandemic. This means that IT techs are constantly in high demand and drowning in unending waves of tickets. Here are four ways to be more productive so you can get to the good stuff.

#1: Make Sure your Tools Are Made for Remote Work

Many IT managers have found that changes they were forced to make during the pandemic — such as Cloud-based apps — have turned out to be necessities in maintaining a remote network and workforce. 

“Even the best team is only as effective as its resources and systems that they use day to day,” says Wes Wright, CIO of Seattle Children’s Hospital. “If you want to get the most out of your IT team, invest in the proper tools. Deploy incredibly secure yet user-intuitive solutions that will cut down on manual hours and improve accuracy in identifying network problems.”*One of the ways you can do this is with PingPlotter Cloud. A network troubleshooting app, PingPlotter, constantly tests the network from the end user’s perspective, visualizes the source of the problem, and recommends how to solve it.

PingPlotter allows you to get more done because you can:

• Diagnose connection problems for anyone, anywhere from a centralized dashboard.
• Let end users troubleshoot independently with tools like Insights.
• Find and resolve issues before support tickets are even submitted.

#2: Off-load Repetitive Work and Reduce Unnecessary Tasks

Removing or delegating tasks purges your workload, keeps your momentum going, and lets you focus on your priorities.

“Teams want to deliver big things and sometimes we just need to eliminate the barriers,” says Charles Galda, CIO for GE Capital. “We have a program called TAP (Technology Accelerating Productivity) that gives simple tips on how to use technology better — from finding the best time for a global meeting across time zones to getting travel logistics to Outlook seamlessly.”*

Another example of this is Insights, PingPlotter’s network analysis tool. Insights helps you dispatch more of the workload to front-line support and basic network troubleshooting to end-users. While you spend your time on higher-level tasks, Insights can automatically analyze your customer’s data and have a diagnosis in as little as 10 minutes — without any intervention on your part.

Watch this video to see how Insights works.

#3: Automate. Automate. Automate. 

According to the April issue of CIO Magazine, the IT team at Sequoia Capital started to automate some of their tasks during the pandemic because employees were fully remote.

“Things as simple as the onboarding and offboarding processes — the automation between our people systems, compliance and technology teams — that was forced on us,” says Avon Puri, Global Chief Digital Officer. “Now, as we are coming back to offices, having that process has been super helpful because we are able to get that stuff done pretty quickly.**

Automated alerts are a useful feature for event-based network troubleshooting. For instance, PingPlotter offers advanced automation capabilities and includes REST API alerts, which enable event-based automation between multiple apps. This helps you unravel issues quicker and more efficiently, making way for improved productivity and freed-up mind space.

#4: Avoid IT Tech Burnout

For many IT techs, tickets became a triage situation during the pandemic. Which emergency should I tend to first? Remote work meant an upswing in job security, but also a heightened possibility of burnout and low team morale.

One simple thing that you can do to avoid burnout is to turn off distractions.“Block out working times department-wide where instant messenger is turned off, and meetings are avoided,” says Nathan Gilmore, co-founder of TeamGantt. “Having hours at a time of uninterrupted work can cause team productivity to soar.”*

Finally, it may seem like a no-brainer, but getting enough sleep and staying well-fed is the secret to warding off burnout and the fuel to be more productive. There’s a reason that tech giants like Google have a perpetual supply of free food for their employees onsite. It works.

____________

*CIO Magazine, June 2014.

**CIO Magazine, April 2022.