Nearly a quarter of British workers say their jobs actively make them unhappy.
That stat should worry any business leader thinking about retention and productivity, not to mention morale and the human experience.
But there's a less obvious problem hiding inside that number — and it has serious security implications.
Article continues belowSVP EMEA for Ivanti.
A potential contributor to workplace unhappiness stems from friction with technology.
Clunky tools, disconnected systems and constant workarounds grind people down.
That daily frustration doesn't stay neatly contained in the "employee experience" box. It bleeds directly into how carefully people handle security protocols — and it gives attackers an easy way in.
Frustration breeds risk
There's a straightforward connection between how people feel about their workplace technology and how safely they use it. When digital tools work well — when they're intuitive and don't waste people's time — employees follow the rules.
They don't go hunting for shortcuts. They don't download random apps on their personal phones to get a task done. But when the tech is a source of constant aggravation, people start improvising. Danger thrives amid improvisation.
That’s not me being dramatic; research backs this up convincingly. Eighty-nine percent of IT professionals say that prioritizing digital employee experience (DEX) has a positive impact on security efforts.
This isn’t a soft correlation. Improving how people interact with their workplace technology directly reduces the risky behavior that threat actors exploit.
No firewall or endpoint tool can prevent human error. But a smooth, well-designed digital experience can disincentivize it—and that's a powerful security control that too many organizations overlook.
Disconnected tools quietly expand the attack surface
Things compound when you add disconnected tools to the mix. When employees are frustrated with the technology they've been given, they don't just suffer in silence. Twenty-seven percent of office workers turn to unauthorized personal devices or unapproved business apps because they've given up on the official tools.
Every one of those unauthorized devices and shadow IT apps is an unmonitored entry point. Security teams can't protect what they can't see — and frustrated employees are creating blind spots across the organization without even realizing it.
Training gaps make this worse. Nearly half of office workers say they're left to teach themselves how to use new technology. Think about what that means in practice. People are dropped into unfamiliar systems with no guidance and expected to figure it out alone.
Of course they're going to take shortcuts. Of course they're going to find the path of least resistance — even if that path runs straight through the organization's security perimeter.
And it's not as though IT teams are ignoring the problem by choice. Forty-one percent of IT professionals cite complexity as a barrier to prioritizing DEX. They're dealing with sprawling tech stacks, legacy systems stitched together with workarounds and competing demands for limited resources.
The result is a vicious cycle: complexity prevents improvement, which drives frustration, which drives risky behavior, which creates more security incidents for already-stretched teams to handle.
Closing gaps that attackers walk through
Breaking this cycle starts with treating digital experience as a security priority — not a nice-to-have that sits with HR or facilities.
Automating routine IT tasks is one of the most effective places to begin. Password resets, software updates and access requests eat up enormous amounts of time for both employees and IT teams. Automating those processes reduces friction for workers and frees up IT to focus on higher-value security work.
Investing in training matters, too. Leaving nearly half your workforce to figure out new tools on their own is an expensive gamble. Structured onboarding for new technology — even a brief, practical walkthrough — can easily pay for itself in reduced support tickets and fewer desperate dives into shadow IT.
Simplifying the tech stack is harder but equally critical. 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 probe.
This will get more pressing as younger workers enter the workforce. Digital natives who grew up with seamless consumer technology have a low tolerance for clunky enterprise tools. They won't just be frustrated by poor digital experiences — they'll leave. And before they leave, they'll find their own workarounds.
The link between employee experience and security posture is measurable, immediate and being exploited right now. If you treat digital frustration as someone else's problem, you’re handing attackers the easiest possible way in.
Check out our list of the best online cybersecurity courses.
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