6 Hard To Overcome stiff Challenges IT leaders Will Face In 2022
Every year brings new challenges for CIOs and 2022 won’t be different. From fighting cybercrime to dealing with talent shortages prevalent in the cybersecurity industry, there is a lot on the IT leaders plate in 2022. The meteoric rise of remote work has also given rise to new challenges. Lack of visibility into devices and BYOD trends further complicates the matter.
Then there is the employee burnout and work related stress problem that is common in the IT and cybersecurity industry. Supply chain issues and chip shortages make it tough for businesses Stiff Challenges For IT Leaders to acquire technologies and new devices. Digital transformation and change management are other challenges that can give IT leaders some sleepless nights..
In this article, you will learn about six hard to overcome challenges that IT leaders will face in 2022.
6 Stiff Challenges For IT Leaders In 2022
Here are six biggest challenges that IT leaders will encounter in 2022.
- Talent Shortfall
According to Cybersecurity Ventures, there are more than 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs by 2025. The acute shortage of cybersecurity will lead to fierce competition for acquiring top talent. This means that individuals that possess the right skillset can charge the premium.
Businesses will have to train their existing employees so they can wear multiple hats at once. By increasing employee awareness and nurturing your existing team members for higher cybersecurity roles, you don’t have to rely on external resource supply, which is already limited and can also cost you a lot more. This will also help your employees in identifying suspicious activities and cybersecurity attacks.
- Skill Shortage
Another problem that is quite common in the IT industry is the disconnect between academia and industry. This creates a wider skill gap. Students who graduate out of a university do not have the skills that industry demands. Due to this, the skills industry is demanding are not present in employees.
The pace at which the IT and cybersecurity industry is evolving forces employees to learn new skills every year. Yes, they might be aware of the basics of cybersecurity but they lag far behind when it comes to emerging skills such as data sciences, digital transformation and artificial intelligence. Sadly, these are the skills the modern workspace demands and if you don’t have them, you will be left far behind in the race. In fact, your career will hit a roadblock if you lack those skills because these are the skills that will reshape the future of cybersecrty and information technology.
- Hybrid Environments
Remote work or hybrid work trends are not going anywhere anytime soon. Even if this pandemic goes away, we will see this trend continue. If your business is ill prepared to manage a hybrid environment or lacks the right tools and skillset to do it, your business will struggle to survive.
Invest in the right communication and collaboration tools and look for ways to secure remote accessibility. Provide your remote workers with the company owned devices instead of letting them bring their own devices to work or use it at home. This will minimize the lack of visibility problem to a certain degree and puts your IT team in a much better position to ensure security and privacy of confidential business data.
Apart from data security and privacy issues, there are a host of other issues IT leaders need to address. For instance, feelings of isolation and inability to turn off the computer when their work shift is over are other issues your remote workers might face. Give them some time off so they can relax and stay connected with them at all times through virtual meetings so they don’t feel isolated.
- Fighting Cybercrime
Probably the biggest challenge CIOs will face in 2022 is fighting cybercrime and keeping cyberattacks at bay. 2021 was one of the worst years as far as cybersecurity is concerned. We saw record high numbers of data breaches and cybersecurity attacks. 2022 won’t be much different. This means that IT leaders should stay on their toes and proactively look for ways to protect their sensitive business data from getting stolen.
You need to have a multi pronged security strategy which covers all the bases. Start off by educating your employees about cybersecurity and how cyberattack works. Test their knowledge with mock attacks and evaluate how strong your security defenses actually are.
Keep everything up to date and have an incident response plan just in case anything goes wrong. Use safer user authentication methods such as biometric authentication and add an extra layer of security on top with multi factor authentication. Follow security best practices to minimize the risk of cybersecurity attacks.
- Employee Burnout
One of the main reasons why we see cybersecurity professionals best vps server Singapore and even IT professionals either switch careers or leave their job is due to work related stress. Employee burnout has become a serious issue so much so that some have gone on the record to say that it has become an epidemic. What can IT leaders do to resolve this problem? Leverage the power of automation to automate mundane tasks so your IT team can only focus on value driven activities. Secondly, you can make them work in shifts and divide the workload in such a way that they don’t get burned out.
- Implementing Change
Digital transformation is becoming an agenda for most business protected server deals. To make digital transformation successful, you need to implement changes that can help your organization become more productive and efficient. Ironically, you might face a lot of backlash from different stakeholders when you try to implement those changes. The way IT leaders swim through these rough seas will determine their success or failure in implementing change.
Let’s say, you want to upgrade from shared server hosting to cheapest server hosting. You will have to convince stakeholders that the changes you are implementing are beneficial for both employees and businesses. That is only when you can get buy-in from different stakeholders for customer communication. When they start to visualize the true benefits of these measures, they will push their weight behind your change initiatives.
Which is the biggest IT challenge you face in 2022? Share it with us in the comments section below.