The Power of Productivity: How Tech Fatigue Threatens It

Your team isn't being defiant when they ignore your new software, and they certainly aren't lazy. They are suffering from technology fatigue.

Very few people get excited over technology these days. Sure, it is nice to get a flashy new smartphone, but in the office, a new piece of software rarely feels exciting. To your staff, it just feels like another login to remember, another dashboard to check, and another interruption in an already busy day.

Think about a standard office worker's Tuesday morning. They log into their workstation, check their email, open Microsoft Teams, pull up the CRM, log into the HR portal to submit a request, and then their phone buzzes with a two-factor authentication code for a cloud file they need to access. Adding one more required application to their daily routine does not increase productivity. It kills it.

Why Technology Fatigue is Costing Your Business

When employees are overwhelmed by their technology, they start looking for shortcuts. They reuse weak passwords because they can't be bothered to remember new ones. They use personal, unsecured cloud accounts to share files because your official network is too clunky to navigate. This is exactly how accidental data breaches happen.

There is a bigger, quieter cost to technology fatigue: employee exhaustion.

Your best employees might already be checking out. You just haven't noticed yet because they are still maintaining the status quo. They have watched management deploy tools that look great on some KPI dashboard, but actively make their day-to-day jobs harder and less efficient.

Control is important, of course, and I completely agree that having a secure, monitored network is critical. Unfortunately for management, your users are people and if you continuously treat them as just another asset expected to seamlessly interface with a dozen software platforms a day, they’re going to struggle. You would. 

How to Fix the Fatigue

It is my job as an IT consultant to get business owners excited about what they can actually do with their technology, rather than just buying more of it. If your team is fatigued, here is how you start fixing it:

Consolidate What You Have

I don't think it is always a matter of throwing money at a problem to solve it. Sometimes it is just a matter of using the technology you already have in better, more effective ways. If you use Microsoft 365, you likely already have built-in communication and file-sharing tools. Stop paying for third-party apps that do the exact same thing.

Provide Better Access Tools

If you are a business owner, you probably manage hundreds of different online accounts. Yet, best practices say your employees are expected to have unique passwords for each one of their work tools. That is a massive ask, if you ask me. Deploy an enterprise password manager so they only have to remember one strong master password. Let the system manage the complexity.

Involve Them In the Conversation

Before you deploy a new tool, ask the people who actually do the work. What is slowing them down? What do they hate about their current process? Empowering your staff means giving them the tools they need to do great work, not micromanaging every little thing.

Technology should actively improve your business operations, not cause daily friction for your employees. If your current IT setup is exhausting your team, we can help you streamline it. To get help with your network, give us a call at (276) 601-3208.