From working with many customers to help keep their critical databases up and running we have come up with the top 6 reasons for putting Database Availability at the top of your priority list. In this blog we look at our top reason – HR and Labour Costs:
The cost of having employees who are unable to carry out work because they cannot access the systems they require should not be ignored. It is important to understand the value of lost productivity.
In addition to this, it is highly likely that IT resource will have to work extra hours to ensure that systems are up and running again as quickly as possible. Sometimes it is even necessary to call in third party support. All of these additional people costs must be taken into consideration.
There are other hidden costs related to how employees are affected by IT downtime. https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-astonishing-hidden-and-personal-costs-of-it-downtime-and-how-predictive-analytics-might-help/ ZDnet released an interesting article in 2017 about the effect of downtime on employees. According to a study by UC Irvine it often takes an average of 23 minutes to refocus on work after an interruption. Therefore, if you imagine the interruption to the IT staff who are notified of an issue or outage plus the interruption to the employees affected by the downtime. If every person takes 23 minutes to refocus that’s a lot of time wasted on top of the time that they couldn’t access systems. According to a Carnegie Melon University study, cognitive function can decrease by 20% after an interruption. Worrying stats indeed.
People costs are often overlooked when it comes to calculating the costs of database downtime but these can constitute a significant cost to the business.
To find out more, take a look at our Database Availability consultancy services or download one of our white papers: