Confidence Among IT Decision Makers Impacts Staffing
Confidence among IT professionals appears to be stabilizing, and in some areas is showing a slight uptick, according to the latest version of the CDW IT Monitor, a bimonthly indicator of the direction and momentum of the IT marketplace. Fifty-one percent of businesses predict IT budget increases over the next six months, up slightly from 49 percent in the previous IT Monitor. The leading driver of this change is in the medium-sized business sector, where the number of companies expecting increased budgets jumped 10 percentage points from April to 64 percent.
However, confidence has not started to improve with the same intensity across all sectors. Small businesses remain the least confident with only 27 percent anticipating a budget increase in the next six months. In terms of staffing, only nine percent of small businesses expect to bring on additional IT staff during that time, compared to 25 percent of medium-sized businesses and 41 percent of large businesses.
Seventy-Eight Percent of Workers Say They are Burned Out at Work
Downsized staffs paired with increased workloads may be causing a rise in stress levels around the workplace. According to a CareerBuilder.com survey of more than 7,600 workers nationwide, 78 percent reported feeling burned out at work. Forty-six percent of workers said their workload has increased over the last six months and approximately the same percentage (45 percent) describe their current workload as heavy or too heavy. Close to a quarter (23 percent) of workers report they are dissatisfied with their current work/life balance.
More than half (54 percent) of workers said their companies offer some sort of flexible work arrangements to help manage stress levels and work/life balance and two-thirds indicated that they take advantage of at least one of the programs offered. When asked which benefits they take part in the most, workers said:
Alternative schedules (72 percent)
Compressed work weeks (24 percent)
Telecommuting (15 percent)
Summer hours (14 percent)
Job sharing (6 percent)
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