We talk endlessly about processes, tools, and technology in IT service management (ITSM). But here’s what we don’t talk about enough: the mental health of the people actually doing the work.
Don’t get me wrong – the conversation is happening. I see posts about well-being, mental health awareness weeks, and workplace stress. We also have quite a few articles ourselves:
- Mental Health Decline: Why IT Leaders Can No Longer Ignore It
- The Silent Crisis: Mental Health in IT
- ITSM Well-being in 2025
But what about when it comes to the specific pressures of ITSM roles? Or the unique challenges teams face? This is where the conversation gets a bit thin in my opinion.
And this matters. Not because of business metrics or productivity reports, but because people are struggling. Interestingly, when asked to write a blog on mental health and well-being in the workplace, ChatGPT focuses on its impact on the business’s bottom line. Very little touches on the negative impact on what matters most. People!
The Reality of ITSM Work
ITSM work is relentless. People are juggling competing priorities, managing end-user expectations, and constantly firefighting while trying to deliver on everything else. The pressure is real, and it’s constant.
I’m tired of seeing so many mental health conversations (particularly on LinkedIn) being framed around business impact. Yes, burnout affects performance. But that’s not why this matters.
It matters because talented professionals are leaving our industry burnt out and broken. Because someone’s stress levels shouldn’t need a business justification. Because we have people working excessive hours, taking on impossible workloads, and absorbing everyone else’s frustration while being told to “be resilient.”
The numbers back this up: 74% of ITSM professionals say working in IT has adversely affected their well-being to some extent. Think about that for a moment. Three-quarters of people doing this work believe it’s harming their mental or physical health.
That’s not sustainable. And it’s not fair.
The Unique People Challenges We Face in ITSM
Working in ITSM comes with pressures that I don’t think we acknowledge enough:
The Boundaries Have Disappeared
Global operations and hybrid working mean you’re never really “off.” That notification at 9pm? The weekend call? The holiday interruption? It all adds up.
You’re Everyone’s Emotional Dumping Ground
IT service desk teams especially bear the brunt of everyone’s technical frustrations. Day after day of angry end-users takes a toll, and we rarely acknowledge that emotional labor.
You’re Set Up to Fail
Show me an ITSM team that feels adequately resourced. Teams everywhere are constantly asked to “do more with less,” and then criticized when something inevitably falls through the cracks.
Our latest well-being survey found that 80% of IT employees feel underappreciated by management. Eight out of ten people don’t feel their efforts are properly recognized, or feel it happens sometimes but not nearly enough.
Nothing Ever Stays Still
AI, new tools, shifting priorities… the disruption never stops. It’s exhausting when you’re constantly playing catch-up.
Looking ahead doesn’t help either – 90% of people think working in IT will get harder over the next three years. Only 8% believe it won’t.
Sound familiar? This combination is a recipe for burnout, yet we act as if it’s just part of the job.
What We Can Actually Do About It
Improving well-being isn’t about wellness apps and surface-level perks. It’s about genuine change:
Make it safe to be human. People need to be able to say “I’m struggling” without it affecting their career prospects. Revolutionary concept, I know. I know very few people who feel comfortable enough to stand up and say this without fearing the negative comeback.
Protect people’s time. Not just policies about working hours, but actual respect for boundaries. If you say no weekend work, mean it.
Use technology to help people, not replace them. Automate the soul-destroying repetitive tasks so people can focus on work that truly matters.
Train managers to be human beings. They need to care about their team’s well-being, not just their output. That means recognizing when someone is drowning and actually doing something about it.
In our well-being survey, seven out of ten employees think their line manager isn’t fully able to identify and deal with employee well-being issues. If we’re serious about this, we need to fix this gap.
Create real support. Not just an employee assistance program buried in Microsoft Teams, but genuine peer support and accessible help when people need it.
Stop measuring everything to death. Well-being isn’t about metrics. Sometimes it’s just about basic human decency.
When Companies Miss the Point on People
I’m tired of all the LinkedIn posts about burnout. I’m tired of organizations that analyze “office vibes,” thinking that means they’re helping with well-being. I’m tired of people I know telling me they’re stressed. Every day.
And of course, this isn’t just limited to ITSM. I have a friend who recently went through significant burnout – I mean the serious kind that lands you in a GP surgery. They work for an incredibly well-known brand that literally had a whole slide deck on mental health and well-being in the workplace when they signed up. If I could share the details, you’d be gobsmacked.
My friend’s issues? Being given impossible workloads, a manager who didn’t care that colleagues weren’t pulling their weight, and getting blamed for everything that went wrong. All while working for a company that talks a big game about employee well-being.
When they finally handed in their notice, the manager simply said, “It was never going to work for you here, you were always complaining”. Yes, complaining about being burnt out and feeling like nobody cares!
We need to do better than performative wellness initiatives and actually address the root causes of why people are struggling.
The Conversations We Need to Have About People
We need to talk about the service desk analyst who dreads Monday mornings. The project manager who hasn’t taken a proper holiday in two years. The team lead who’s covering for three people and pretending everything’s fine.
We need to acknowledge that crying at your desk doesn’t make you weak. That feeling overwhelmed doesn’t make you inadequate. That asking for help isn’t failure.
We need to stop pretending that “resilience” means accepting unreasonable conditions and start asking why those conditions exist in the first place.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Mental health in ITSM isn’t a program or an initiative. It’s about recognizing that the people doing this work are human beings with limits, feelings, and lives outside of work.
It’s about creating environments where people can thrive, not just survive. Where someone can have a bad day without it defining their career. Where work is challenging but not crushing.
Look, I’m not someone in a position to make a huge difference here. I don’t run a massive organization or set policy for thousands of employees. Heck, I don’t even know how to get people talking more about this stuff. Every article we post on well-being barely gets any traction.
But maybe that’s part of the problem. Perhaps we’re all waiting for someone else to fix it, someone with more influence or a bigger platform. Meanwhile, people are still struggling, still burning out, still ending up in GP surgeries because work has become unsustainable.
I don’t have all the answers. I just know we can’t keep pretending this is normal.
Sophie Danby
Sophie is a freelance ITSM marketing consultant, helping ITSM solution vendors to develop and implement effective marketing strategies.
She covers both traditional areas of marketing (such as advertising, trade shows, and events) and digital marketing (such as video, social media, and email marketing). She is also a trained editor.
