One thing I’ve noticed about hybrid working is that it has expanded what the business expects IT directors to own.
A few years ago, there was a lot of focus on making remote work possible.
Devices needed deploying, applications needed to be accessible and people needed a way to stay productive outside the office.
Those projects are largely behind us.
But what happens now hybrid working is permanent?
The answer is that responsibility spreads into areas that weren’t always considered part of the traditional IT brief.
As a simple example: An employee reports that a business application is performing poorly.
Twenty years ago, troubleshooting usually started inside the corporate environment.
Today, the issue could involve a home broadband connection, a consumer-grade Wi-Fi setup, a cloud application, an identity platform, an endpoint security policy or something else entirely.
The boundaries are less defined than they used to be.
That changes the nature of operational support.
Problems are harder to reproduce. Ownership becomes less obvious. Investigations involve more third parties. Resolution can depend on factors that sit outside direct IT control.
Yet the expectation remains the same.
The business still looks to IT for answers.
I’ve had plenty of conversations with IT directors who spend less time managing technology than they do coordinating people, suppliers and business stakeholders.
Hybrid working has accelerated that.
Security is a good example.
The technical controls are usually the easy part. Modern platforms provide plenty of capability around device compliance, conditional access and identity protection.
What consumes time is everything around those controls.
A director wants access from a personal device while travelling.
A supplier needs temporary access to a system.
A business unit adopts a new SaaS platform without involving IT early enough.
While the individual requests look manageable in isolation, collectively, they create a steady flow of decisions, exceptions and governance activity that somebody needs to own.
So, your workload increases.
The number of moving parts continues to grow while leadership teams expect more.
Stronger security, better reporting, faster support and clearer evidence that risks are being managed appropriately.
Finding enough capacity to meet those expectations, while continuing to deliver projects and support day-to-day operations, isn’t easy.
This is one reason IT directors are using co-managed support.
They’re finding ways to create enough capacity to stay on top of everything.
It gives them more room to focus on the decisions that need business context, judgment and experience.
If you’re finding those demands are growing faster than the capacity available within your team, get in touch.