The password gets tripped up, the program crashes. The document is “somewhere in Teams, or at least it was yesterday.” A meeting starts in three minutes but the technology is not cooperating. For many civil servants, this is not the exception, but rather the rule.
A recent survey conducted by Unionen via Infostat among 1,000 privately employed white-collar workers* shows that IT hassles cost Swedish companies over SEK 31 billion per year in lost working time. But as Professor Jan Gulliksen, an expert on human-computer interaction at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, notes in the article ” How much does IT hassle cost – in money, time and patience?”, the real cost is probably much higher.
Here, the cost of missed work time has been calculated. But the cost in stress and frustration, i.e. reduced well-being, is harder to calculate
It’s not just about minutes, but also about focus, energy and job satisfaction. And that’s exactly where it starts to hurt.
When digital barriers become a work environment problem
We are used to seeing the work environment as something physical, such as chairs, screens, light and sound.
However, as highlighted in the article, the OSH Act also covers the digital environment. Yet rarely does anyone ask whether the systems are coherent, the tools understandable, or whether employees can actually do their jobs without unnecessary obstacles.
Many organizations simply adapt their way of working to IT systems and not the other way around. And the frustration grows accordingly. Not necessarily because the technology is broken, but because it requires too many manual steps, lacks logic from the user’s perspective, or makes simple tasks unnecessarily complex.
A particularly serious aspect highlighted by Professor Gulliksen is shame. “When technology doesn’t work, many people think: ‘I must be the one who doesn’t understand. Instead of flagging problems, people sit around, irritated and stressed. Which in turn leads to lost time, poor quality and a feeling of never quite being enough. This is not an individual problem. It is a design problem, and a responsibility that too often falls between the cracks.
Document management is one of the biggest energy thieves
Many people associate IT problems with crashing systems. But what we hear from our clients is that, in practice, it is often everyday tasks that drain the most energy, such as finding the right version of a document, understanding where information should be saved, ensuring permissions or following processes that do not reflect reality.
Small interruptions repeated hundreds of times turn into systematic loss of productivity. This is where document management plays a crucial role.
In practice, we often encounter organizations where employees spend more time thinking about where a document should be saved than on the content of the document. This is a clear sign that the systems do not support the work, but rather compete with it.
When technology actually supports work
When documents, processes and information are actually structured according to how the business works, something happens. Searching is immediately reduced. Fewer errors occur and employees dare to trust the systems.
By building on Microsoft 365, but adding clear structure, business-aligned metadata and user-friendly workflows, document management can become a support – not a hindrance.
Organizations that scrutinize their digital environments, involve users, and view usability as a strategic issue gain not only time and money, but also engagement, focus, and job satisfaction. The promise of digitization has never been more systems.
It has been better work, and we have become too used to compromising on that promise. We should stop doing that.
Do you need help reviewing your digital environment and creating business-friendly metadata?
*About the survey
In the fall of 2025, Unionen commissioned Infostat to conduct an online survey among 1,000 private-sector salaried employees to map how IT problems affect work.
Main results:
- One in two officials say they spend up to 30 minutes each working day on IT issues.
- This corresponds to a total of 73 million working hours per year for the group, which is estimated to cost Swedish companies around SEK 31 billion annually in lost time.
- 8 out of 10 officials are stressed by technology that doesn’t work – and about 3 out of 10 are very stressed.
**Source:https://www.unionen.se/opinion/sa-mycket-kostar-it-strulet-i-pengar-tid-och-talamod