In March of this year, technology company TeamViewer surveyed 300 US IT administrators about their experiences with end users and how their habits affected the IT admin and the company as a whole. The results weren’t too surprising, but they certainly showed that lax regulation of computer habits have lasting effects.
Almost all of the IT admins surveyed (92%) stated that they have seen inappropriate behavior by their end users. As you would expect, the top offense was browsing social media websites (82%) followed by opening inappropriate email attachments (57%), downloading games (52%), plugging in unauthorized USB devices (50%), illegal downloads (45%) and looking for other jobs (39%).
Sure, you may think checking Facebook a couple of times a day is not a big deal but these behaviors do have potentially negative repercussions. Of those surveyed, 90% said that they have witnessed issues as a result of these actions. These issues include viruses (77%), slow computers (74%), crashed computers (55%), mass popups (48%) and an inability to open email (33%).
Watching your employees at all times is not realistic and imposing extremely tough rules can be damaging to employee morale, so what to do? First you must determine how much risk you are willing to take and balance that with compliance levels your business is subjected to (e.g. HIPPA or SOX). Additionally, you should be using technology tools such as security software and automatic backups to protect your system and data as much as possible.
Partnering with an IT provider that you trust is the first step in protecting your business. You should also be sitting down with them at least a couple of times each year just to discuss your business and where you’d like to take it. You must regard them as a business partner just as you would a banker, an accountant or an attorney. If you are only working with your IT provider when there is a fire to put out they will not be able to really assist you in moving your business forward.
Mythos Technology is an IT consulting and management firm. For more information, please visit www.mythostech.com or call (951) 813-2672.
