I always enjoy getting feedback from readers, good or bad, and would like to share some comments I received regarding reasons IT departments have bigger workloads.

In a recent newsletter we cited a Robert Half Technology survey in which nearly half of the CIOs that participated said new initiatives are the reason workloads have gotten heavier. Only 9% pinned the blame on layoffs.

Allen doesn’t buy that. “This article just reinforces the suspicion that CIOs are completely out of touch with what goes on in the trenches,” he says. While his workload has increased because of new initiatives, he says that has always been the case, and the workload has only become an issue because of staff reductions.

“What this survey doesn't show is that until two thirds of my co-workers were laid off, the workload from new projects and corporate expansion would have been distributed among all of us, and the extra work (and hours) would have been easy to cope with,” he writes. Now the new initiatives cause those of us that are left three times the extra work (and hours) compared to what they would have last year.”

Travis points out another possible cause that wasn’t cited in the survey - new legislation such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Sarbanes-Oxley. “The cost to implement the projects went up due to these issues,” he says of e-mail archiving, encryption and other security mandates. “Implementing security is starting to cost as much as the software and customization.” He laments that it’s expensive and time-consuming to keep up with patching.