The Importance And Impact Of IT Monitoring Solutions

Dave Link, Founder and CEO at ScienceLogic shares a few thoughts on the need for better monitoring solutions for HR, Sales and Marketing teams as remote work trends and processes get more focus in 2021:

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The remote work concept is not new to the tech and SaaS industry: however, there has been more focus on using the right processes and technologies to enable stronger outcomes since last year, can you talk about the importance and impact of IT monitoring solutions in this mix and how businesses across key departments (sales / marketing) also need to pay attention to this as workplace trends evolve?

Remote work has amplified the need for better monitoring solutions.  If our most critical assets (employees) are remote and need secure access to their applications, then managing the health of the underlying infrastructure supporting these applications is the job of IT operations and monitoring platforms like ours.  Today, digital experience management, application performance management, and infrastructure management are some of the most critical enablers to scaling remote work efforts at large enterprises.  You can’t have VPN issues from home, you can’t afford security breaches and you can have collaboration tools suffer from network capacity issues as examples.

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We’d love to know how ScienceLogic’s work culture and processes; you recently ranked at the top of Glassdoor’s list of best remote jobs, tell us more about this!

If we learned one thing in 2020 it’s that it is possible to do our jobs anywhere!  Roughly 50% of our global workforce was already working remotely when the pandemic began, so the adjustment to 100% remote work was probably a little easier for us.  We already had the necessary tools and technology in place to keep us knitted together and well informed so you could say we were very well prepared in terms of adapting to the “new normal”.   While certainly not without its challenges, our team delivered incredibly strong results in 2020 – a testament to our resilience and our ability to maintain robust cross-functional communication.   Clearly our values have played a big part in how we’ve been able to maneuver successfully during the  pandemic – one of those values, EMPOWER SUCCESS has really been the bedrock for success – it assures that we remain mission focused, free to perform, highly collaborative and mutually accountable.   Every day, I’m more amazed at the success our team delivers and while I wish we could be together more often, I have no doubt that our team will continue delivering at extraordinarily high levels.

While hiring for remote jobs, especially a variety of roles like sales/marketing – what are some of the HR Technologies and hiring tools that you feel leaders need to be adept with?

Large global platforms like LinkedIn offer us an amazing opportunity to find and attract talent and leveraging tools to automate skills testing have improved hiring efficiency for us.  We have also found that like us, associations, such as Women in Technology, have moved their career fairs into the virtual word which has helped us maintain our diversity hiring efforts. Teams has been an incredibly valuable tool for us – while never a substitute for in-person interviewing – it is the “next best thing”!  Our hiring and pre-boarding processes are entirely automated, as is our background check process.  Because our processes are all virtualized, we rely on tools like Survey Monkey to provide us with feedback and other invaluable insights that keep us on track.  We have also learned that as much as technology has shaped our recruiting strategies, we haven’t forgotten that a fruitful source for talent is our employees…offering a low tech, low touch, very high return!

Before we wrap up, we’d love to hear a little about your top-of-mind thoughts on leading tech teams more effectively during a global pandemic!

Communicate, communicate, communicate.  And communicate.  Be sensitive to the burnout that can come from being ‘on’ all the time.  While technology has enabled many companies to successfully navigate through the pandemic, it has also blurred the lines between work and life balance.  I believe that setting and communicating crisp goals and objectives and assuring that they are aligned with company goals is critical to our success.  Feedback is also critical – even more so now that our employees are remote – so our managers make intentional efforts to regularly connect with their teams.  One way to master onboarding for new hires,  is by assigning a new hire buddy or mentor.  Starting a new job is difficult enough, even more so in a virtual environment, so be sure that your onboarding efforts take this into account.  And most importantly, be empathetic.  The pandemic response has placed many unforeseen, unanticipated challenges before our employees.  Remote schooling can place a great strain on employees, and that is often difficult to detect in a virtualized setting.  Be on the lookout and be empathetic.  Showing your teams you genuinely care about their well-being and safety during these difficult times is a sure fire way to motivate them to great success!

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