Presented by TeamViewerEnterprise technology failures are largely invisible. Research from TeamViewer, based on a global survey of 4,200 managers and employees, finds that the majority of digital dysfunction never reaches the IT help desk. Employees work around slow applications, failed logins, and intermittent glitches rather than reporting them, leaving organizations without an accurate picture of how their technology is performing. The cumulative cost is significant: employees lose an average of 1.3 workdays per month to digital friction, with impacts ranging from delayed projects and lost revenue to increased employee turnover.The research, which surveyed managers and employees across nine countries, confirms what many have long suspected: the productivity loss from digital friction is significant, and most of it never surfaces in an IT support queue, says Andrew Hewitt, VP of strategic technology at TeamViewer.“Enterprise outages are visible because they trigger clear, system-level failures,” Hewitt says. “But much of the real disruption happens earlier, in the form of digital friction: slow apps, login issues, or intermittent glitches that don’t cross alert thresholds. These smaller issues often go unreported or are normalized by employees, even though they quietly drain productivity.”What is digital friction and why does it go unreported?The most common sources of friction — connectivity failures, software crashes, hardware problems, and authentication issues — aren’t edge-case scenarios, but everyday experiences employees have learned to absorb without escalating. Connectivity problems were the most widespread, with nearly half identifying them as the top productivity killer among common technology issues.That tendency to absorb rather than report is central to the problem. Many workers don’t trust their IT team to resolve issues quickly or effectively, so when a login fails or an application stalls mid-task, the path of least resistance is to restart the device, switch tools, or use a personal phone.“Employees are under more pressure than ever to prove output,” Hewitt sa …
