Clearwater, Fla. – November 13, 2025 – A new report from TeamViewer, a global leader in digital workplace solutions, finds IT dysfunction – also known as digital friction – is taking a serious toll on employee happiness, and is contributing to customer loss and employee turnover. The research found that:

• More than half of U.S. employees (55%) say digital friction makes them frustrated and less satisfied with their job
• 51% report it contributes to burnout
• 36% have considered leaving their company because of digital friction at work

The impact of IT dysfunction – defined as any type of challenge with IT systems that prevents an employee from doing their job or doing it efficiently – cannot be overlooked. Fifty-four percent of U.S. respondents say IT dysfunction has had a significant or moderate impact on employee turnover at their organization, and 39% confess to having lost good employees due to digital friction. This is significant because, when turnover does occur, it takes an average of eight weeks to fully onboard replacements, with half (50%) of U.S. respondents saying it takes more than a month.

“Unhappy employees can permeate an entire organization,” said Kai Werner, Chief Human Resources Officer, TeamViewer. “As these findings show, satisfaction in the modern digital workplace depends heavily on functional IT systems. When those systems fail, culture suffers.

Nearly half of U.S. respondents say digital friction reduces their motivation at work (49%) and has negatively impacted their individual performance (47%). Despite this, nearly a quarter (23%) of employees globally say their organization has done nothing to better understand or reduce digital friction in the workplace.

The Frustration is Real
Overall, 55% of U.S. respondents admit to having some sort of frustration caused by digital friction. When looking at how workers deal with these frustrations across generations globally, Gen Z is the most likely to react, with thirteen percent saying they've been brought to tears over IT dysfunction at work, 16% admitting to swearing or raising their voice at work and 23% confessing to kicking, throwing or taking out their frustration physically on a device.

Employees are even willing to give up other work perks, with 33% of U.S. respondents saying they'd trade happy hours or social gatherings for technology that always works. When considering the most important aspects of a new job opportunity, a good tech setup (63%) competes closely with the team and colleagues they’d be working with (66%) and beats out benefits like a company car, healthcare and gym membership (57%). Additionally, 52% of U.S. respondents say that digital experience is important enough to ask about when applying at a new company.

Business Impact and the Trust Gap
The impact extends beyond employee morale to the bottom line. Forty-four percent of U.S. respondents say digital friction has caused a loss of customers or clients, half (50%) cite lost revenue, and 58% report it has caused delays in critical business operations or projects in the last year. In fact, U.S. workers lose an average of 1.5 days per month to IT dysfunction, with only 15% expecting this to improve next year.

The research also reveals a confidence gap between employees and their IT teams. Fifty-three percent of U.S. workers don't trust their IT team to resolve technical issues quickly and effectively, and 44% fear their IT team won't protect their personal and work-related data. In response to these challenges, 51% of U.S. employees admit to using personal devices or applications as a workaround to deal with digital friction – posing a significant security threat – a considerably higher amount compared to other countries such as Japan (22%) and Germany (28%).

Addressing IT Dysfunction
Digital Employee Experience (DEX) platforms can help by proactively monitoring networks, flagging repeat issues and predicting points of digital friction before they happen.

The TeamViewer DEX platform finds and resolves IT issues before they affect users by using always-on monitoring to pinpoint problems with real-time insights into performance and user sentiment across apps and devices. With embedded AI agents, the platform can help companies of all sizes monitor 24/7, gather real-time insights from users, automatically resolve quick fixes, and give IT teams the information they need to respond quickly to more complex problems.

"The truth is, most employees who are frustrated with technology at work don't bother to submit a ticket or raise an issue," said Mark Banfield, Chief Revenue Officer, TeamViewer. "They suffer in silence until a small problem becomes a big problem and at that point, the damage is done. The employee is unhappy and likely the colleagues or customers they work with feel it too.”

You can find the full research report here: The Impact of Digital Friction: Understanding How Dysfunctional Technology Drains Productivity, Performance & People

Survey Methodology
The survey was conducted by Sapio Research in August and September 2025 using an email invitation and online survey. In total 4,200 managers and employees (50:50 split) across the U.S. (1,000), Australia (400), Canada (400), France (400), Germany (400), India (400), Italy (400), Japan (400) and U.K. (400) were surveyed. 

At an overall level results are accurate to ± 1.5% at 95% confidence limits assuming a result of 50%.