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Research Shows Employee Burnout Could Cause Your Next Data Breach

Understanding how stress impacts your employees’ cybersecurity behaviors could significantly reduce the chances of people’s mistakes compromising your company’s security, our latest research reveals.

Consider this. A shocking 93% of US and UK employees told us they feel tired and stressed at some point during their working week, with one in 10 feeling tired every day. And perhaps more worryingly, nearly half (46%) said they have experienced burnout in their career.

Then consider that nearly two-thirds of employees feel chained to their desks, as 61% of respondents in our report said there is a culture of presenteeism in their organization that makes them work longer hours than they need to. Nearly 70% of employees also agreed that there is an expectation within their company to respond to emails quickly.

Employees are overwhelmed, overworked and are feeling the pressure to keep pace with their organization’s demands.

“61% of employees say a culture of presenteeism in their company that makes them work longer hours than they need to.”
PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN ERROR REPORTTessian

The effects of the pandemic 

The events of 2020 haven’t helped matters either. In the wake of the global pandemic, people have experienced extremely stressful situations that affected their health and finances, against a backdrop of political uncertainty and social unrest, while simultaneously juggling the demands of their jobs. The sudden shift to remote working also meant that people were surrounded by new distractions, and over half of respondents (57%) told us they felt more distracted when working from home.

According to Jeff Hancock, a professor at Stanford University who collaborated with us on this report, people tend to make mistakes or decisions they later regret when they are stressed and distracted. This is because when our cognitive load is overwhelmed, and when our attention is split between multiple tasks, we aren’t able to fully concentrate on the task in front of us.

What does this mean for security? 

Not only are these findings incredibly concerning for employees’ health and wellbeing, these factors could also explain why mistakes that compromise cybersecurity are happening more than ever. The majority of employees (52%) we surveyed said they make more mistakes at work when they are stressed.

Read more here.