Cyber technology has created opportunities for workplace deviance by initializing an environment where personnel can use personal equipment, through poor control of networks, and by inducing employee stress through increased use of technology.

The use of personal electronic devices in the workplace is becoming more accepted. Having a personal electronic device can assist an employee in networking with coworkers and other professionals which extensively widens one person’s knowledge base. This can make an employee highly productive and, in turn, be a highly profitable for the organization. However, having one’s personal device can also lead to use or abuse of social media during working hours, especially if the employee is in a less than positive mood. There are many situations at work that can negatively impact an employee. The access to personal devices at work can simply intensify a minor issue. For example, maybe that employee was passed over for promotion. First-hand experience has shown that this type of situation can lead to the deviant behavior of hanging out on social media and quite possibly creating negative posts about the employer while sitting at one’s desk. The affected person might also be inclined to sit on a personal phone or text to complain to friends and family about the situation. Never mind the fact that the personal device might be able to be connected directly to employer devices. That is a whole new can of worms. These behaviors cost the company time and money. For these reasons, having personal devices at work can be seen as counterproductive.

As mentioned, personal devices might be connected to company devices which can lead to a slew of cyber related issues and concerns. However, simply having a network that is poorly controlled can have negative implications when dealing with an employee that is less than happy. There are countless numbers of websites and countless numbers of mistakes involving sites that can happen during a workday. For instance, again, first-hand experience has shown that simply finding a quote for a product can be grueling for an employee who is not a specialist in sales and logistics. Where does one start searching? Just type into the search bar and see what comes up. This is the world wide web after all. Unfortunately, not all sites are what they claim to be. Thankfully, this employee hit many stopping points because the company’s network has protections built in. What if those protections weren’t there? Then there is little protection for that network. For example, one site that has a harmless name and a harmless look, automatically tried to send firmware malware. Thankfully, there is antivirus software that prevents such actions. On a network without these protections, the malware would be sitting unidentified on a company’s network. Keep in mind that this is all from a positive employee who is not looking to cause trouble. Imagine what an angry employee with that simple level of access can do.

An employee can also become overwhelmed by technology and technology-related tasks. The term for this is techno-stress and was coined in the 1980s by Dr. Craig Brod (Salazar-Concha et al., 2021). There are many different forms of technostress. In the workplace, technology can be in every aspect of the job. Simply dealing with all of the different types of technology; the software, hardware, information derived, and so on, can be overwhelming to an employee. This alone can cause one to want to walk away for a bit. It can make an employee unhappy and non-productive if not handled correctly. Heavy reliance on technology and the need to keep up with all of the newest technologies can result in mental burnt out. Also, there is the worry that technology might replace an employee. This is not wholly uncommon. There are many aspects to technology that affect people beyond the hacks and other news-worthy incidents. These should be taken into account if a company wants to be more productive well into the future.

Salazar-Concha, C., Ficapal-Cusí, P., Boada-Grau, J., & Camacho, L. J. (2021). Analyzing the evolution of technostress: A science mapping approach. Heliyon, 7(4), e06726. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06726