CA looks at webstress - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

CA looks at webstress - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Last week on my twitter account (click here to follow me), I hinted at this mysterious project in London that I couldnt talk more about. Well now I finally can and its a really cool one :o) CA (formerly Computer Associates) commissioned a study (called The CA 2009 Webstress Index) to look at webstress, a term they came up with to describe the frustration and unhappiness you experience when a crucial web application is not working properly. Here I am, talking about the study: And here are some of the key findings: 68% of workers say they rely on web applications more now than two years ago and 97% wouldn?t be able to do their job without them. 24% say that every day they have to cope with badly performing applications with an additional third 34% claiming this happens on a weekly basis. 81% say they have no choice but to use some business applications even when they aren?t working properly You can see the whole study here. This study is interesting because it confirms something Ive seen in many workplaces: Employees are reliant on IT systems to their jobs. Increasingly, the IT systems we use are web applications, meaning they reside somewhere on the internet. When these systems are slow, buggy or unavailable we get frustrated and angry. This is especially true these days, where companies are demanding ever higher levels of productivity, efficiency and customer service from their people. If companies demand this but dont give employees the well-functioning tools they need to deliver, the result is unhappiness at work. And of course, when employees are unhappy at work, the results are: Lower productivity Higher absenteeism Higher employee turnover Lower customer satisfaction Lower profits These factors taken together can cost organizations huge sums of money. Speaking from my own experience, my own company is absolutely dependent on web apps all our vital IT systems run on a web server somewhere. If any of them are not working, were basically crippled. Fortunately, that happens very rarely or I would be suffering from seeeeerious webstress :o) The same goes on the customer side. We all use web applications to buy books, plane tickets, movie tickets, hotels, etc. and when these web apps arent working or seem too slow, there are always ten other sites offering much the same products at much the same prices. If your company offers any kind of web application to its customers, that system should make them happy. At the very least, it shouldnt give them webstress and make the unhappy because its, slow, buggy or even down. I think its time for organizations to take webstress seriously. CAs study confirms what Ive seen in many workplaces all over the world, namely that badly performing web applications is a major source of unhappiness at work and in customers. And THATS why I am so excited about the CA study. Full disclosure: CA offers Application Performance Monitoring Solutions that let organizations track the performance of web applications. They are paying me to contribute to this campaign but I still mean every word :o) Your take What about you? Are you using any crucial web apps in your job? Have you experienced web stress? Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related