Dive Brief:
- IT security professionals that regularly help coworkers fix computer problems could be costing companies more than $80,000 per year, according to a new survey from Firemon.
- The survey found 83% of IT security professionals are asked by colleagues to help fix their personal computer problems, and 80% of that group spends an hour or more a week doing so. Firemon also found 8% of security pros say they spend 5 or more hours a week helping their colleagues, potentially growing those lost revenues to $443,300 per year.
- "If organizations were to invest even a portion of that ‘waste’ spend on more intelligent management solutions that help their IT security personnel keep day-to-day work on track, then it would have a big impact on improving their security postures,"said Michael Callahan, Firemon CMO, in a company blog. "It could even potentially reduce the number of staff required to manage complex network security environments.”
Dive Insight:
IT security personnel likely enjoy helping co-workers deal with computer issues, but not everyone considers that help can come at a cost. IT security personnel are some of the highest-paid IT employees in an organization today, so those bits of time they donate to co-workers add up fast.
Some companies require employees to submit job tickets or similar things to help track how much time IT staff use working on internal company computers. However, many employees look for a quick response and do not want to wait for the system to respond.
Given the number of outside cyberthreats today, most companies likely prefer their IT security personnel stay focused on protecting the enterprise than help co-workers with myriad computer issues.
