The Post Super Bowl IT Blues

More than two in five hybrid workers plan to work remotely after the big game. Could this Lead To a blitz of work for the IT team?

Football fans across the U.S. will be watching this Sunday, February 11 as the Kansas City Chiefs take on the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII. Along with the football action, there will be plenty of eating, drinking and cheering — potentially leaving workers exhausted for the week ahead. These football festivities have resulted in the Monday after the Super Bowl becoming an unofficial national holiday of sorts, with some suggesting it become official so workers get the day off. (If you agree, there’s an online petition on Change.org where you can show your support for the movement.)

But until that vision becomes a reality, new research by AI-powered IT management platform Atera shows 41% of hybrid workers in the U.S. are planning to stay at home and work remotely the Monday after the Super Bowl. Of those planning to work remotely, 27% plan to tell their manager they are not feeling well and don’t want to get others sick, and one in four (25%) plan to tell their manager they have an “appointment.”

Even those who do show up to work on post-game Monday don’t necessarily plan to give it their best: 33% admit they are likely to get less work than typically done, 24% say they are likely to be less responsive than usual, and 26% say they’re likely to be unproductive. What’s more, 31% expect to be groggy, 28% expect to be hungover, and 25% expect to be cranky. Some are already planning ahead, with 18% holding back finished work now to share later.

Super Bowl LVIII — *^{The Monday after the Super Bowl could be busiest day of the year for remote IT issues, warns Atera.}*

No Day Off For IT

However, this lax Monday for general workers comes at a cost for their organizations’ IT teams, as 31% of remote or hybrid employees admit that working remotely means they’re more likely to have IT issues. Furthermore, 50% admit they are more likely to use their own personal devices instead of work-issued hardware when working remotely, which puts employees at a higher risk of falling victim to phishing and cyber threats. With all these concerns, a whopping 64% agreed “it is unacceptable” for IT professionals to be slow to respond on the Monday after the Super Bowl.

This could put immense pressure on IT professionals: 77% expect a “tsunami” of IT problems and emergencies. In fact, 75% believe it will be the busiest day of 2024 and 46% of IT professionals expect a mean 26% uptick in IT tickets. As a result, 81% of IT professionals feel more pressure to be online to support their colleagues that day, while 62% of general colleagues feel they are able to take Monday off.

What’s more, 66% of American IT professionals agreed it is harder to take days off than colleagues who are not in the IT department, which has serious implications for burnout, employee retention, and overall satisfaction.

IT managers predict the top issues plaguing them will be:

Software down (50%)
Clicked on phishing link (42%)
Forgotten password (37%)
Blue screen of death (37%)
Non-compliant shadow IT (33%)
Drinks spilt on laptops (30%)

“Life in IT is always busy, but Big Game Monday will be the next level. With workers up and down the country deciding to work remotely, we’re expecting a huge spike in IT issues,” said Gil Pekelman, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Atera. “When employees work from home, they’re more likely to use shadow IT (non-approved personal devices), which causes painful headaches for IT teams as it increases the chances of security breaches. But there is also a significant uptick in routine issues that IT teams will have to wade through as efficiently as possible. With AI-powered IT management software like Atera, IT pros can blitz through their tickets while maintaining a high level of quality support – helping them get through the backlog fast so they can take a well-earned rest on Big Game Monday too.”

To ensure IT workers don’t have to endure another brutally long post-game day in the future, Atera has launched its own petition to get Big Game Monday recognized as a national holiday — something Atera’s research found 41% of general workers support. Once Atera collects 15,000 signatures, the company plans to submit it to local legislators.