The 58^th championship football game is set to take place on Sunday, February 11^th, and is sure to inspire an American tradition of cheering, drinking, eating, and tailgating, leaving workers exhausted for the week ahead. In fact, new research of American workers from AI-powered IT management platform Atera shows 41% of hybrid workers are planning to stay at home and work remotely the Monday after the Big Game. 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 1 in 4 (25%) plan to tell their manager they have an "appointment."

Even those who do show up to work on Big 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. 

However, this lax Monday for general workers comes at a cost for IT heroes, 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 Big Game Monday.

This is set to put immense pressure on American IT professionals, with 77% expecting 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 on Big Game Monday, while 62% of general colleagues feel they are able to take Big Game 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."

Atera's Microsoft Azure Open AI-powered solution helps to streamline, automate, and optimize workflow and processes for IT teams - including auto-generating ticket summaries and response suggestions. Employees can even use AI to self-troubleshoot, with Atera's predictive capabilities helping to self-resolve challenges before they become a problem requiring IT teams to intervene. This is particularly game-changing, as Atera's report found that IT professionals spend a mean of more than 5 hours a month on IT tickets related to issues the end user could solve with the help of AI (such as computer reboots, password resets, etc.). 

"Atera's Open AI-powered script generator has been a game changer for my team," said John Merrick, Information Technology Technical Lead at SWNS Media Group. "Instead of referring to a search engine and wasting time finding the right script to run, we just describe the problem and receive a script in seconds to review and run on devices remotely. It has dramatically improved resolution time."

Atera is supporting IT heroes who are stepping up on Big Game Monday, and every day, to ensure their company runs smoothly and successfully behind the scenes. Atera is working with a cast of NFL all-stars to send personalized messages of thanks to teams stepping up after the Big Game.

And to ensure IT workers don't have to endure another brutally long post-match day in the future, Atera has launched a 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 will submit it to local legislators for review.