Many factors within an organization contribute to the stress and burnout in IT and cybersecurity. However, changing the culture of IT and the way it interacts within a company can significantly impact the mental well-being of the employees.
Let us explore how stereotypes, gamification, and better leadership can improve the culture within the IT department.
Part of the Team, yet a Special Culture
Pop culture has left us with the impression that the IT department is packed with nerds in T-shirts with witty slogans who provide tech support if and only if you ask for it. However, the reality is a bit more complicated. Yet, the view of the IT employees as service nerds has caused a disconnect between employees and turned the department into an almost humanless mass.
While none of us like to be stereotyped, the view of the IT department opens up an avenue to humanize the department and its mission.
E-mails and dashboards are the most common engagement points between the IT department and their co-workers. Why not use them to change the perception that IT isn’t simply a service but that real people are answering those service tickets? Marketers know that consistently entertaining e-mails have great engagement rates. If your IT team is game, they could let their personalities shine through with humor and other engaging posts, like informal polls or fun photos.
Gamification and Habits for a Better Training
Pokémon Go is a fascinating phenomenon because millions of people are walking through the street, more than any health initiative ever. They searched for the reward of getting that little Pokémon—an outstanding way of gamification.
We should apply the same to cybersecurity. Turning these unpleasantries like changing your password, turning on two-factor authentication, or reporting spam into reward experiences can change your employee’s focus. It can turn from that’s stupid to I want to be part of it. It can change the experience and turn on our reward centers.
A Client of ours did it the following way. Whenever you threw spam into the spam folder, you got a point. Friday at 5 pm comes the E-Mail with the points per employee. I have never seen so much reported spam. After all, everyone wants to win the points and be the very best, to quote Pokémon.
Open-source software like Habitica efficiently trains cybersecurity habits through constant repetition. Every action gives you a point, which players can turn into rewards like in-game items.
Thus, gamification replaces stress and frustration with rewards and entertainment. It’s the difference between detention for failure and avoiding the issue by encouraging good behavior before a problem arises.
Leadership Culture
Lastly, good leaders don’t fall from the sky. You need the right combination of nature and nurture to achieve leadership success. Yet, the nurture part is lacking in many companies.
Leadership training and mentorships are staples for many senior leaders. Yet, we often don’t take the time to mentor junior leaders. However, the team and group managers engage with employees daily. They are first in line when conflicts arise within the department or between their team and other parts of the organization. They also give detailed feedback to the employees and, in turn, help everyone grow.
We cannot expect employees to grow into leadership by just doing it. Failing to engage correctly with employees leads to avoidable stress, worries, and frustrations.
If we don’t provide the internal or external resources for leaders to grow, everyone loses. Building a better culture has to start at the bottom. You cannot impress leadership top down. Let’s remove the frustration of bad leaders by allowing them to grow and become the leaders we need, and they deserve to be.
Culture Changes Slowly
Changing the culture of a department and organization takes time. You don’t create leaders in a day, build habits overnight, or change the worldviews we ingrained in ourselves over decades. Yet, a better culture significantly impacts the retention rate of your top performers, which in turn sets up IT for long-term success. If nothing else, it reduces stress and burnout, which is an excellent goal for this stress awareness month and any other time of the year.