Your Employees’ Tech Frustration is a Gift to Cybercriminals
Nearly a quarter of British workers say their job actually makes them unhappy.
This statistic should worry any business leader thinking about retention and productivity, not to mention morale and the human experience.
But this number hides a less obvious problem – and it has serious security implications.
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Friction with technology can contribute to job dissatisfaction.
Clunky tools, disconnected systems, and constant workarounds are crushing people.
This daily frustration does not remain perfectly contained in the “employee experience” box. This is directly reflected in the way people handle security protocols – and it gives attackers an easy way to break in.
Frustration breeds risk
There is a direct link between how people feel about their workplace technology and how securely they use it. When digital tools work well, when they are intuitive and do not waste time, employees follow the rules.
They don’t look for shortcuts. They don’t download random apps on their personal phones to accomplish a task. But when technology is a source of constant aggravation, people start to improvise. Danger thrives in the midst of improvisation.
It’s not me who is dramatizing; research convincingly confirms this. Eighty-nine percent of IT professionals say that prioritizing digital employee experience (DEX) has a positive impact on security efforts.
This is not a soft correlation. Improving the way people interact with workplace technology directly reduces risky behaviors exploited by bad actors.
No firewall or endpoint tool can prevent human error. But a seamless, well-designed digital experience can deter it – and it’s a powerful security control that too many organizations overlook.
Things get worse when you add disconnected tools to the mix. When employees are frustrated with the technology available to them, they don’t suffer in silence. Twenty-seven percent of office workers are turning to unauthorized personal devices or unapproved business apps because they’ve abandoned official tools.
Each of these unauthorized devices and shadow IT applications constitutes an unmonitored entry point. Security teams can’t protect what they can’t see, and frustrated employees create blind spots within the organization without even realizing it.
Training gaps make the situation worse. Nearly half of office workers say they have to teach themselves how to use new technology. Think about what this means in practice. People are abandoned in unknown systems without any guidance and are expected to fend for themselves.
Of course they will take shortcuts. Of course, they will find the path of least resistance, even if that path passes directly through the organization’s security perimeter.
And it’s not like IT teams are ignoring the problem by choice. Forty-one percent of IT professionals cite complexity as a barrier to prioritizing DEX. They face sprawling technology stacks, legacy systems stitched together with workarounds, and competing demands for limited resources.
The result is a vicious cycle: complexity prevents improvement, which leads to frustration, which leads to risky behavior, which creates more security incidents for already overburdened teams to manage.
Filling gaps crossed by attackers
Breaking this cycle starts by treating the digital experience as a security priority, not a perk reserved for HR or facilities.
Automating routine IT tasks is one of the most effective places to start. Password resets, software updates, and access requests waste a lot of time for employees and IT teams. Automating these processes reduces friction for workers and allows IT to focus on higher-value security tasks.
Investing in training is also important. Letting nearly half of your workforce discover new tools on their own is an expensive gamble. Structured integration with new technologies – even a brief, practical overview – can easily pay off in fewer support tickets and fewer desperate dives into shadow IT.
Simplifying the technology stack is more difficult but just as essential. Every redundant tool and disconnected system is another potential gap. Consolidation won’t happen overnight, but even incremental progress toward a more streamlined environment reduces both employee frustration and the surface area attackers can explore.
This will become even more urgent as younger workers enter the workforce. Digital natives who grew up with seamless consumer technology have a low tolerance for clunky business tools. They won’t just be frustrated by a bad digital experience: they’ll leave. And before leaving, they will find their own solutions.
The connection between employee experience and security posture is measurable, immediate and is currently being leveraged. If you view digital frustration as someone else’s problem, you give attackers the easiest route possible.
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