47 percent of workers spend their own money fixing home working technical issues
Tech issues at home can be frustrating enough when you're trying to stream a movie or set up a video call with the family, but they're even more of an issue if you're trying to work from home too.
New research from comparison site InMyArea.com looks at how tech issues are affecting the home workforce. It finds that 47 percent of employees have spent their own money to solve technical problems, with 20 percent spending $100 or more.
More than half of all remote employees report experiencing some type of tech issue, and one in three say these issues cause them a high or even extreme amount of stress. The most common source of tech-stress for most was a lack of speed, with slow internet connections (56 percent), slow devices (50 percent), and slow file downloads (32 percent) topping the list.
When people contacted their employer's IT team most found it helpful, indeed 83 percent of those working in companies with between 51 and 100 employees were satisfied with the IT help provided. This falls to 80 percent for companies with more than 500 staff.
However, 31 percent of employees still didn't ask for help, even when experiencing a tech problem, and one in five hadn't asked their employer for help in any way.
"As tech-savvy as many people are, the transition to a fully remote environment was a large undertaking, especially for those who haven't worked remotely in the past," says Ryan McGonagill, director of industry research at InMyArea. "Combine that with technical issues and you have a recipe for stress. Our findings show that when employers provide their team with better IT support, the result is more satisfied, productive, and motivated team members."
You can see more from the survey on the InMyArea site and there's an infographic of some of the findings below.
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