It’s no secret that productivity is crucial for a company's success, but did you know that outdated tech can be a huge productivity killer? The productive time lost each week varies significantly depending on the employer, employee, and the technology in use. To gain a comprehensive understanding of these costs, we examined results from multiple studies on this critical topic and will break it down with stats to show why keeping your technology up to date is essential for a smooth-running workplace.
The Hidden Costs of Old Tech
Old hardware and software can really drag down productivity. Think about all the times you’ve had to wait for a slow computer to load or deal with endless updates. Every second spent on these issues is time not spent working, and those seconds add up fast in the workplace.
What the Research Says
Studies show that technology issues are a widespread problem. A survey by Compucom in the USA found that 22% of enterprise workers always had technology issues, and another 12% said they often had issues. Additionally, 28% reported sometimes having issues, 31% said rarely, and only 8% claimed never to have issues.
Image: Employee survey of how often they have tech issues at work. Data from Compucom.
In terms of time lost, they found that minor tech disruptions occur on average four times a day, lasting 21 minutes each, amounting to about 100 minutes. That’s over an hour and a half each week for every single employee! This results in companies losing approximately 10.5 workdays per year per employee. If we simply assume that an employee makes $30/hour with 84 hours lost per year, that is $2,520 per employee per year. For an enterprise company with 1000 computer users, that will be a loss of $2,520,000 a year in tech delays, clearly demonstrating the need for an intelligent and calculated lifecycle policy calling for a refresh of equipment every 2-4 years.
An older Dutch study found that employees lost, on average, 7.6% in productive time due to problems with their technology, or 4 minutes and 34 seconds for every hour. This percentage jumped to 10% among staff members with lower levels of education.
Another study by Unisys broke down their survey even further to get the full range of losses. They found that in the USA, 5% of employees lost 10 or more hours per week in productivity due to technology issues or lack of tech support, 17% lost 6-10 hours, 24% lost 3-5 hours, 24% lost 1-2 hours, and 29% lost less than one hour.
Interestingly, when employers were asked if they measured lost productivity due to tech issues, 42% said no, 52% said yes, and 6% did not know if their company did. That alone is concerning. Do you know how much technology problems are costing you in productivity?
Two Levels of Tech Troubles
When we talk about productivity, we need to consider both the end-users and the IT staff who help fix the problems. Non-specialist employees trying to fix their own issues or asking their equally non-specialist colleagues for help means they're not doing the jobs they were hired for. Plus, when IT specialists are constantly fixing old IT assets when they inevitably break down, it increases their workload and job dissatisfaction, potentially leading to burnout or necessitating additional hiring of tech staff, adding more to your repair budget.
The Dollars and Cents of Lost Productivity
Image: Chart showing potential financial costs of lost productivity per employee per week and month.
Let's put some rough numbers to this. If the average wage of technology users from entry-level to upper-level executives in a company is $123,000 a year, and they work 2,080 hours annually, that’s an average of about $59 per hour. So, lost productivity ranges from about $99 per week for those with the fewest issues and up to $591 per week per employee for those with the most problems. For a company with 100 employees, that's $9,856 to $59,100 lost weekly. Scale up to 1,000 employees, and you're looking at $98,560 to $591,000 per week or about $30 million annually. Sure, these are estimates, but you can see how quickly those numbers really add up!
Remote and Hybrid Work Challenges
Remote and hybrid work setups add another layer of complexity. Technology issues take longer to resolve when tech support isn’t physically present. A study found that 73% of remote workers lost significant time due to tech issues, compared to 41% of hybrid and 22% of on-site workers. With the number of remote workers expected to rise to 22% by 2025, keeping their technology updated is crucial.
Technostress: The Hidden Cost of IT
Ever heard of technostress? It’s the stress caused by dealing with technology, whether it's from baby boomers who don’t understand how to use it or millennials dissatisfied with old tech. Technostress can lead to social isolation, emotional overload, job insecurity, and work-life balance issues. Technostress increases dramatically when assets are outdated because old tech is 2-3 times more likely to break down. Then, employees can’t make deadlines or feel inadequate compared to peers with newer IT assets. Technostress reduces overall employee satisfaction and can significantly increase employee turnover rates.
Attracting and Retaining Talent
The Great Resignation showed us how important it is to retain talent. Though turnover rates declined from 24.7% to 17.3% from 2022 to 2023, replacing employees is still very costly. On average, it costs $34,204 per new employee in lost productivity during the training period and hiring costs like the time spent interviewing, advertising costs, and HR costs. If you have 1000 employees with a 17% turnover rate, that works out to 170 employees per year at $34,204 per year, which is costing $5,814,680 per year in employee turnover.
So why do employees leave? Studies show that salary is the primary reason why employees voluntarily leave, but surprisingly, having the right technology tools was deemed only 1% less important than salary. That means a significant number of those 170 employees who leave each year do so because of having outdated technology, again highlighting the need to refresh that tech in order to retain talent.
When asked how much they value good technology, 71% of employees across all age groups said very much, 21% said somewhat, and only 8% felt that quality IT was not important. Therefore, quality IT definitely improves employee experiences and reduces technostress, making people more likely to stay with your company.
Image: Chart of Employee survey results when asked how much they value good tech. Data from Compucom.
Downtime: A Major Productivity Killer
Downtime from computer freezes or network outages is a significant productivity drain. It’s caused by outdated tech, inconsistent backups, and poor security practices. In 2022, 76% of companies experienced downtime, a 25% increase from the previous year. The real cost of downtime is not just the time it takes to fix it, which is only 5%, but the other 95% is lost productive time (78%) and lost revenue (17%).
Chart showing what the true costs of downtime are. Data from Acronis.
So, How Much Does Downtime Cost?
Downtime costs a significant amount of money. The Information Technology Intelligence Consulting (ITIC) survey estimated the cost of IT downtime at about $5,000 per minute on average. Furthermore, over 98% of large enterprises with more than 1,000 employees reported that each hour of downtime costs over $1667 per minute. On the other end of the scale, extreme cases can reach millions per minute. Something easily avoided when you do a tech refresh every 2 to 4 years.
Final Thoughts
Managing employee productivity isn’t just about tracking work hours. It’s about ensuring that your employees have access to reliable and updated technology. Addressing tech issues quickly and providing robust support can significantly reduce productivity losses. Knowing when to retire old tech and investing in new assets not only boosts productivity but also enhances employee satisfaction and retention, driving your company’s success.
Find Out How We Can Help
If you would like additional information, check out our white paper on Balancing Tech Spending and Employee Productivity.
If you are an enterprise, government, or institution looking for ITAD solutions or have any additional questions, please contact us at ICT.
Selected References
Acronis Cyber Protection Week Global Report. (2022). https://dl.acronis.com/u/rc/Acronis-Cyber-Protection-Week-Global-Report-2022.pdf
Bondanini, G., Giorgi, G., Ariza-Montes, A., Vega-Muñoz, A., & Andreucci-Annunziata, P. (2020). Technostress Dark Side of Technology in the Workplace: A Scientometric Analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(21). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17218013
Compucom (2023). Data and analysis from our in-depth survey of hybrid worker IT experiences -and insights for improving them Connecting the Dots: Experience, Technology, and the Hybrid Work Environment Research Findings. Compucom White Paper. https://www.compucom.com/
DiDio, L. (2020). Forty Percent of Enterprises Say Hourly Downtime Costs Top $1Million – Information Technology Intelligence Consulting. https://itic-corp.com/forty-percent-of-enterprises-say-hourly-downtime-costs-top-1million/
Haan, K. (2023, June 12). Remote Work Statistics And Trends In 2023. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/remote-work-statistics/
Martini, D. (2023, February 20). Wasted Talent: Time Lost to (Old) Tech Issues. Electric. https://www.electric.ai/blog/wasted-talent-time-lost-to-tech-issues
Microsoft News. (2018). True cost of not replacing computers revealed in Microsoft study: more than $4,000 each – New Zealand News Centre. News.microsoft.com. From https://news.microsoft.com/en-nz/2018/10/16/true-cost-of-not-replacing-computers-revealed-in-microsoft-study-more-than-4000-each/#_ftnref1
Unisys (2023). From Surviving to Thriving in Hybrid Work Comprehensive data and insights Hybrid work IT support Security Technology Employee experience Motivation and engagement. From https://www.unisys.com/siteassets/microsites/hfs-insights/hfs-comprehensive-data-and-insights-report.pdf
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