Why should you learn to repair computers in your business?

Although technical problems waste time and hinder employees from completing their work, technical support workers have something to keep them busy as well. Therefore, we should seek to understand the problem and treat it first before we contact the technical expert.

On a Monday morning, after the weekend was over, Andy Malone, a database manager in the IT department, sat at his corporate desk and tried to enter the password he had put on his computer, but after five failed to enter the correct password Sometimes, the system shuts down completely.

Then Malone called the technical support team, thinking that he knew more than him, and a member of the team gently asked him if he had changed the password recently? Then Malone suddenly remembered that he had changed the password before the weekend.

"I always try not to change my password on the Friday before the weekend, because every time I forget my new password the day after the holiday. But I changed it anyway," says Malone.

And Malone admits that he made a silly mistake, and in fact it is no different from the silly mistakes that others constantly make, and they ask him to correct them within the framework of his work in the Information Technology Department. "IT people run into hundreds of trivial problems every single day," says Mallon.

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Most people are more familiar with modern technology than they were a few years ago, and technological means have become much more advanced. But until now, most companies are still constantly dealing with these annoying minor technical problems, which waste companies precious hours that employees would spend in production.

Time is precious

A survey conducted by IT staffing firm Robert Half Technology found that workers waste an average of 22 minutes a day dealing with IT-related issues, which translates to about 91 hours. or more than two weeks annually.

It's a waste of time," says Nima Mirpourian, branch manager at Robert Half Technology in Toronto.

Job Brown, Head of Web and Web Developers at Interior Goods Direct, Wakefield, UK, agrees and says that when he was appointed CIO two years ago, he noticed that slow computers were affecting productivity.

According to Brown's calculations, employees wait about two and a half minutes an hour for computers to finish retrieving information, or to respond to commands, which translates to 49 hours a week, which costs the company, according to the UK minimum salary, £352 per year per year. employee.

Technology is rapidly changing

Malone says that there are many reasons for the increase in technical problems faced by companies and workers alike, but the main reason is that we use technology more than before, and it does not stop changing .

A decade ago, the only technology we were interested in was a computer, but now we have cell phones, iPads, and more.

We use many programs to carry out our work, and we have to discover how to use each program, not to mention the developed forms, or new versions of the programs. It seems that once we have mastered the use of a modern technological means, it is replaced by a newer technological method, which makes us dispense with the previous one, and then learn from the beginning how to use the modern features and luxuries that distinguish the newest technological means from its predecessor.

Technology is rapidly evolving, and it may change the way an app works, or the look of an app as you used to, making it more difficult to find stored information,” Malone says.

Try to fix it yourself

Contrary to what many people think, IT people have something to worry about and are not only dedicated to fixing the technical problems we encounter, but they can help you when necessary.

Most of them have technical problems that are far greater than these minor problems, but they are not obvious, such as making sure that large networks work as they should, that all data stored on the computer is constantly copied, that data and computer systems have not been hacked, and that programs may Checked, new computers purchased, and a lot of other tasks.

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There is no doubt that the problems we face in computers affect our productivity, but calling the technical expert to fix every little technical glitch will affect his productivity as well.

Brown says that a decade ago, most people knew how to work with a computer, and we used our knowledge before we contacted a technical expert. If we find that the computer is slow, we try to restart it, and this often fixes the problem.

If our office printer ran out of ink, we replaced the new ink cartridge ourselves. Although all these things are simple, they make things easier and we avoid a lot of problems.

People should carry out the initial inspection steps themselves, and if they find that the fault still exists, then they can contact the technical expert.

While Mirpourian says each company should have its own policy for getting people to fix a bug themselves, he thinks it's best for an employee to address a problem as soon as it arises rather than wait for it to escalate.

Those who do not know how to deal with primitive problems should learn from the IT department how to fix recurring problems.

Need to get training

Mirpourian says that in many cases, employees are not taken for granted that they are not able to deal with some software or hardware, as some programs can be complex. If employees are not adequately trained to use the software, how will they accomplish the task required of them?

It is often the company's responsibility to train employees in the use of the technology to be used, Mirpourian continues, to help mitigate problems.

Once a new employee is hired, he must receive training on how to use the programs that will help him carry out his work, provided that the training continues, depending on the degree of difficulty of the program. Training should also be made to use all new versions that replace the old ones.

This applies to computers. If a new computer is installed, the employee must be taught how to use it. And if you buy a new printer, teach people how to install the ink cartridge themselves.

If the company starts using new technologies, then the responsibility to ensure the success of these methods falls on the company's shoulders. This will help the employees to carry out the tasks entrusted to them in the best way, and most importantly, they will not ask for help from the technical support staff unnecessarily. ".

Reducing Problems

No matter how advanced technological means are, companies will not dispense with technical support, but there are some things that may limit problems that appear from time to time.

First, says Brown, you have to put the money where it belongs. Especially in the technological field, the higher the price, the higher the quality, in most cases. When Brown took over the company last year, he replaced the old hard drives with new, more advanced hard drives to increase the speed of computers, and the results were amazing.

Complaints about slow computers are completely reduced, and employees work at least an extra minute for every hour of work.

The main objective behind this is to make things easier for all relevant parties, to prevent serious errors from occurring. Malone knows that it is inevitable to make silly mistakes when dealing with various technological devices, but if he does everything in his power to avoid mistakes, he will increase his productivity, for example, to start changing the password before the weekend rather than after it.

"I spent 30 minutes the morning I got back to work after the weekend desperately trying to remember my pre-holiday password, and I'll never do that again," says Malone.