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The New Role of IT: Promoting Employee Collaboration and Productivity

Pre-pandemic, only 16% of IT decision makers would say IT was largely responsible for the workplace. But in the next five years, 45% expect their departments to be largely responsible, according to a new research report, IT in the Evolving Workplace, from Nexthink.


The report highlights that 94% of IT professionals are seeing the roles and responsibilities of their job moving away from simply provisioning IT equipment to focus more on providing solutions which promote employee collaboration and productivity.

90% have received additional training from their organization to support them in their role's evolution since the shift to remote work in the beginning of 2020, and 95% have received access to additional tools or software.

"Hybrid or remote working has cast enterprise IT into the role of supporting digital work experiences and even influencing the side effects of remote work, including isolation, disengagement and lack of energy" said Yassine Zaied, Chief Strategy Officer for Nexthink. "As a result, IT's role is changing from a problem fixer to an architect of the workplace. While this shift was accelerated due to the necessary remote work caused by the pandemic, the data shows us IT has been heading in this direction for years. We're on the cusp of a new era for how enterprises consider digital work and who supports it."

Additional highlights from the report on the shifting roles and responsibilities of IT include:

IT's evolving role

IT's role has been evolving for years — 99% of respondents have seen new tasks come into their role in the past five years, including developing working from home practices and training, supporting employee communication and developing sustainability projects and policies.

More recognition for IT

Despite changes, IT professionals are looking for more recognition in their new roles — 99% report that there are things that they could have or do which would help them excel as an IT professional in a remote/hybrid working world — more than half (57%) would like recognition of their roles and responsibilities, followed by additional tools/software (55%), better leadership/guidance (53%) and additional time for certain tasks (47%).

HR under IT

Traditionally HR areas are coming under the purview of IT. While 63% of IT professionals consider access to effective and appropriate technology to be largely the IT department's responsibility, notable proportions also consider IT to be responsible in other more traditionally HR-focused areas. For example, 29% believe that IT are largely responsible for effective employee collaboration and 27% believe they are largely responsible for employee productivity.

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IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

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In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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The New Role of IT: Promoting Employee Collaboration and Productivity

Pre-pandemic, only 16% of IT decision makers would say IT was largely responsible for the workplace. But in the next five years, 45% expect their departments to be largely responsible, according to a new research report, IT in the Evolving Workplace, from Nexthink.


The report highlights that 94% of IT professionals are seeing the roles and responsibilities of their job moving away from simply provisioning IT equipment to focus more on providing solutions which promote employee collaboration and productivity.

90% have received additional training from their organization to support them in their role's evolution since the shift to remote work in the beginning of 2020, and 95% have received access to additional tools or software.

"Hybrid or remote working has cast enterprise IT into the role of supporting digital work experiences and even influencing the side effects of remote work, including isolation, disengagement and lack of energy" said Yassine Zaied, Chief Strategy Officer for Nexthink. "As a result, IT's role is changing from a problem fixer to an architect of the workplace. While this shift was accelerated due to the necessary remote work caused by the pandemic, the data shows us IT has been heading in this direction for years. We're on the cusp of a new era for how enterprises consider digital work and who supports it."

Additional highlights from the report on the shifting roles and responsibilities of IT include:

IT's evolving role

IT's role has been evolving for years — 99% of respondents have seen new tasks come into their role in the past five years, including developing working from home practices and training, supporting employee communication and developing sustainability projects and policies.

More recognition for IT

Despite changes, IT professionals are looking for more recognition in their new roles — 99% report that there are things that they could have or do which would help them excel as an IT professional in a remote/hybrid working world — more than half (57%) would like recognition of their roles and responsibilities, followed by additional tools/software (55%), better leadership/guidance (53%) and additional time for certain tasks (47%).

HR under IT

Traditionally HR areas are coming under the purview of IT. While 63% of IT professionals consider access to effective and appropriate technology to be largely the IT department's responsibility, notable proportions also consider IT to be responsible in other more traditionally HR-focused areas. For example, 29% believe that IT are largely responsible for effective employee collaboration and 27% believe they are largely responsible for employee productivity.

The Latest

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...

Today, organizations are generating and processing more data than ever before. From training AI models to running complex analytics, massive datasets have become the backbone of innovation. However, as businesses embrace the cloud for its scalability and flexibility, a new challenge arises: managing the soaring costs of storing and processing this data ...