It's endless and constant – the relentless need to upgrade systems, devices and apps.

As more technology advancements come through, some employees are struggling to keep up with increasingly sophisticated system upgrades.

The struggle is real and has a name: technostress.

Technostress has been defined as the negative psychological relationship between people and the introduction of new technologies.

Its impact can erode productivity, dampen morale, and even impact overall wellbeing.

As burnout and employee mental health issues rise, technostress emerges as an issue that requires attention.

Chronic technostress is a major contributor to burnout, characterised by emotional exhaustion and a diminished sense of personal accomplishment.

Research from an Ivanti 2024 survey found 55 per cent of workers had negative experiences with workplace technology, and that this impacted their mood and morale.

At work

Utility specialist Benjamin Tom’s role at electricity comparison website electricitymonster.com.au involves assessing how new technologies integrate into existing systems and overall efficiency.

Like many workplaces, Tom constantly navigates a landscape of continuous software and application upgrades.

“While promising enhanced features, often they’ve presented a significant challenge to our daily workload by introducing unforeseen workflow disruptions, leading to a silent drain on productivity through the necessary learning curves and troubleshooting time.”

This directly contradicts the widespread expectation that updates universally streamline operations.

“While the intent behind updates is always to improve, the reality can often be a mix of enhanced functionality and disruptive challenges.

“Many assume that every upgrade automatically leads to better outcomes; our experience shows a more nuanced picture.”

Contrary to popular belief, the brain cannot multitask. Photo: Shutterstock

Tom provides a recent experience with an upgrade to the company’s primary project management software.

The marketing materials for the new version promised a 15 per cent increase in team collaboration efficiency.

However, the rollout immediately introduced a new interface that fundamentally changed the location of key features and introduced a completely different method for assigning tasks.

Despite four hours of mandatory training per employee, his team experienced a collective productivity dip of an estimated 20 per cent for the first two weeks following the launch.

“This translated to approximately 80 hours of lost productive time per week across our team of 10 specialists during that initial period,” said Tom.

Simple actions, like checking project status or generating reports, which previously took 10 seconds, now required 30 to 60 seconds of searching for the correct menu option.

“Beyond the initial learning curve, there were unexpected bugs, such as a feature that caused task comments to randomly disappear, requiring our IT department to spend approximately 15 hours troubleshooting that particular issue over three days.”

The cumulative, often unquantified, delays and frustrations created a genuine hinderance to employees’ workloads.

“It demonstrates that even well-intentioned upgrades can initially impede progress more than they help, requiring a strategic approach to implementation to minimise disruption.”

What are the potential causes of technostress

Those who use technology in the workplace are most at risk of experiencing technostress.

Increased exposure to computer monitors is associated with emotional stress.

The result is people are emotionally affected by technostress in their workplace.

Potential causes of technostress include:

· Rapid speeds at which technology evolves

· Lack of proper training in technology usage

· Increased workload

· Lack of standardisation within technologies

· Reliability issues in hardware and software

The University of Melbourne’s Professor Reeva Lederman said research suggests that people with extroverted personalities are less impacted by technostress because having many channels of communication targeting them at the same time may not bother them.

Multiple and constant pings for your attention can cause stress. Photo: Shutterstock

“In fact, they often thrive on the over stimulation.

“It’s more problematic for introverted personalities if they are unable to halt the constant stream of communication that we all now receive from work, social media and personal contacts.”

Poor fit, budget blow out

Her research partner, Dr Suelette Dreyfus from the University of Melbourne, said organisations that don’t shape incoming technology to fit reasonable workflows and needs of their workers may get a rude shock as workers may quite rationally navigate workarounds.

“The staff members may see the new IT as a problem and find novel ways to overcome that problem.

“That may cause IT security risks or subsequent budget blow outs,” she said.

Dr Dreyfus provides an example from a hospital system upgrade.

Hospital management introduced a new IT system that caused heavier online administrative loads on junior staff without proper support or explanation or work time for the change.

In addition to facing a million-dollar financial loss, senior doctors had to spend weeks of their time on admin cleaning up the mess rather than assisting patients.

By overloading junior staff with a new system, ultimately senior staff had to pay.

Ways to navigate technostress

Professor Lederman said it’s important to understand that workplace problems can arise where senior figures are extroverted and do not understand the stress caused to more introverted colleagues by the constant noise of continuous communication coming from multiple channels, and the perceived demand for instant action.

“If an organisation just slams its workers with one new platform after another without enough time off to adopt and adjust, good staff may exit, and some functions of the organisation may collapse,” said Dr Dreyfus.

“As organisations adopt new IT systems, they need to assign proper resources for technology training, including time release from daily tasks,” she adds.

Neuroscientist Dr Mark Williams said when the programs don’t do what they’re meant to, workers become less productive and frustrated.

And when stress levels increase, productivity falls.

“A lot of companies find their employees are very stressed, resulting in mental health issues and taking time off.

“This stems from pressure to be productive and getting work done.

“We are in a transition period and technology will continue to change. As an example, right now everything is heading to voice recognition.”

Stress can result in mental health issues and the need to take time off work. Photo: Shutterstock

Employers need to focus on what’s going to make their employees more productive.

“Issuing continual upgrades isn’t going to make them more productive. What does, is giving them time and allowing them to concentrate and get work done.”

Humans are not capable of multitasking.

“We have a very limited working memory capacity. Employees need environments that allow them to maximise their capacity and sustain attention.

“Concentration needs to be on one task at a time, rather than being bombarded with multiple tasks or stressful upgrades.”

The number one thing that decreases stress and allows people to become more productive, is to turn off notifications on all devices.

“What we know is, when you turn off all notifications from all devices, emails, and social media, you’ll be more productive at work.”

People lose 60 seconds each time a notification comes through, because they turn their attention away from what they are doing.

“Our research shows most people are losing about two hours a day on this distraction.

“Imagine how more productive you’ll be [without it] – and it will improve your mental health.”