As a small business owner, you don't have the luxury of a huge cybersecurity team and budget. You rely on your lean team of employees and partners like Clocktower Technology Services to protect your digital assets and data. But there's an often-overlooked risk that could be jeopardizing your security: employee burnout.
I've noticed a disturbing trend impacting the small businesses we work with over the past two years. Workers are busier than ever, trying to do more with fewer resources. My engineers tell me they are having trouble getting appointments to work with clients, even to take care of problems those same clients reported. These exhausted small business employees are having trouble just getting to basic tasks and supporting their own customers.
The consequences are serious. Verizon's 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report (released today at Verizon.com/dbir) found that 68% of breaches involved overworked employees falling for scams, accidentally exposing data, or misconfiguring systems due to burnout and fatigue. For a small business, a single breach like this could be devastating.
When employees are overwhelmed, they cut corners on security processes and make preventable mistakes. Stretched too thin, they are more vulnerable to social engineering attacks that exploit their stress levels. Investing in your team's mental health and work-life balance needs to be viewed as an essential investment in cybersecurity and business protection.
Leveraging Automation to Reduce Burnout
One way Clocktower helps small businesses reduce the security risks from employee burnout is by leveraging process automation and artificial intelligence. By automating repetitive tasks and augmenting your team with AI assistants, we can relieve their workload significantly. (This article was created with help from Claude.ai and Canva.com’s Magic Media in about ¼ the time it would normally take to write a post and find a suitable, royalty-free image.)
However, it's important not to just add more responsibilities with the time gained from automation. The goal is to improve work-life balance and create sustainable workloads for your employees - not just get more from them. When implemented properly, automation becomes a force multiplier that lets your lean team accomplish more without burning out.
As a managed service provider, we've witnessed firsthand how overworked employees have become a prime risk vector for the small businesses we support. Having an effective cybersecurity strategy isn't just about technology—it's about proactively supporting the humans at the frontlines.
If you're concerned about the cybersecurity risks from employee burnout, schedule a call with our team at Clocktower Technology Services. We'll assess your current processes and explore how automation could help protect your business while improving work-life balance.
You can book your Assessment with one of our experts for FREE by going to https://www.clocktowertech.com/free-network-assessment/ or calling 508-541-6143.
