In the long term, cybersecurity shouldn’t interfere with work processes, lead to misunderstandings, or put people under unnecessary stress while they’re just trying to do their jobs.
Employees must go through multi-step, complex login processes in order to access their work. By doing this, it is ensured that there is a cap on the number of hours an employee can work in a day and that company data is secure. Employees today face login fatigue. It’s a result of both the excessive number of passwords and the constant requirement for Multi-Factor Authentication to verify their identity.
Hemanth Mundra, Sr. Director and Global Head HR, Qentelli, says, “The two-factor authentication, remembering multiple passwords, frequent password resets, and knowledge-based authentications have pushed employees to login fatigue. To escape the password chaos, employees are skipping company-authorized security methods and resorting to personal email ids or social accounts for one-step login. The approach simplifies the login process but compromises many business areas, including employee motivation, workplace productivity, and data security.”
A recent report by 1Password, “Unlocking The Login Challenge: How Login Fatigue Compromises Employee Productivity, Security and Mental Health,” analyzed how using passwords in most workplaces is challenging, complicated, frustrating, and disrupts the workflow. Current processes often put crucial information and data at risk when login fatigue sets in among employees.
“Logging into work accounts has become a point of distress for employees, and that is clear with skipped meetings to procrastinating tasks entirely. According to the survey by 1Password, 43% of employees admit to sharing login information, assigning tasks to others, or skipping work altogether to avoid logging in, which threatens their organizations’ security,” says Mundra.
Multi-step and complex login processes frustrate employees. In fact, these processes can waste their time, hamper their productivity, and ultimately force them to give up—leaving them to neglect important work-related tasks simply because logging in is too challenging.
The Effects of Login Fatigue
Login fatigue affects not just employees; it interferes with meetings, causing employees to miss, on average, several hours of meetings. Additionally, it causes incomplete work, where work is neglected, a task is offloaded, or the person gives up trying to log in at all.
Why It’s Crucial to Understand Login Fatigue
The topic of login fatigue deserves much-needed focus. To defend themselves against cyber-attacks, organizations use complicated, multi-step login processes. They must, however, be aware of how each of their employees is affected by complex logins.
In the long run, cybersecurity must not interfere with workflows, create misunderstandings, or cause unnecessary stress for employees who want to just do their work. It’s time for businesses to reassess their cybersecurity strategies and prioritize employee accessibility.
The Need for Passwords
The risks of poorly managed passwords have long been known in the industry. For instance, reused passwords pose security risks for businesses, as can malware that targets devices and steals credentials. If this is the case, how can companies mitigate password risk while addressing login fatigue?
Leaders must first ensure that their company is utilizing a reliable password manager. This will help make login processes for employees seamless and organize passwords. Second, they need to do away with company-wide shared passwords. It won’t be tempting for employees to do it if it’s not happening anywhere in the company.
Third, organizations should always implement multi-factor authentication. It is vital to implement MFA and make it a norm across the company, despite the fact that it can cause employee fatigue. It would be risky to proceed in any other way for security reasons.
Most importantly, the workforce must be educated on this issue. If the employees are aware of the benefits of proper password management and how it affects the entire organization, compliance will increase.
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