Altron Digital Business (ADB) has published a first-of-its-kind benchmark study determining how employees experience technology across financial services industry institutions in South Africa.

The Employee Technology Experience Index found a correlation between the technology experiences of employees and workforce outcomes such as employee productivity, job satisfaction, retention, the employee net promoter score and, ultimately, customer experience and organisational performance.

The study, based on input from 385 employees across eight major banking and insurance institutions, was undertaken to provide business leaders with a clear, evidence-based view of where technology investments are driving value and where they are creating risk.

“For the first time, South African banks and insurers have access to local, evidence-based data that connects technology investment directly to workforce and business outcomes. This shifts the conversation from information technology (IT) support metrics to strategic performance indicators that belong in the boardroom,” says ADB MD Craig Stewart.

Commissioned by ADB and undertaken by Lightspeed, part of the Kantar Group, the research offers distinctive insights into challenges and opportunities for South Africa’s leading financial services institutions as they modernise their technology foundations to better support employees and customers.

“Technology is no longer a back-office enabler; it is a defining factor in how employees perform, how customers are served and how organisations compete,” he says, highlighting that the study set out to answer three key questions: how technology experiences shape employee experiences; what the impact on business outcomes could be and determine a metric for this impact; and where customers or companies can invest for the greatest impact.

The financial services sector, one of the large engine rooms of the South African economy, accounting for a fifth of the country’s GDP and one of the most technology-intensive sectors, provided a solid base for the study.

“If you want to understand how technology shapes the people who deliver a service, and whether that friction reaches the end customer, we felt [it was best] to start where the technology density and the stakes are the highest.”

The findings reveal a hidden productivity tax in that the gap between workplace technology and technology-related friction or disruptions is costing financial services industry organisations between R3.2-million and R30-million per 1 000 employees each year.

The report shows that each employee loses 76 minutes a week to technology disruptions, equivalent to 7.6 working days a year.

When considering technology friction, many organisations often focus only on major inhibitors, such as a network or application outage, and measure technology in operational terms, including device fleet age, infrastructure stability, ticket resolution rates and system uptime.

“These metrics describe what IT does. They do not describe what it feels like to work with the technology IT teams deliver – and they do not connect technology performance to the outcomes that boards care about: talent retention, customer experience and competitive positioning.”

However, the smaller frictions, such as a slow application, repeatedly having to log in during sessions, waiting on a network or a support ticket “going nowhere”, besides others, add up.

“Individually, all of these things are quite trivial, but across thousands of people, they add up to nearly eight working days lost,” he explains, pointing out that, for organisations with 50 000-plus employees, for example, this can amount to a significant number.

Further, 47% of respondents said that this friction is impacting not only them but also their customers and interactions with colleagues, resulting in a knock-on effect, with 86% of employees experiencing daily or more frequent disruption having delivered poorer customer service as a result.

In addition, a +105-point employee net promoter score gap exists between employees with positive technology experiences, compared with those without

Another critical finding is the “visibility gap” emerging within organisations.

“More than 28% of employees have stopped reporting IT issues entirely, while over half (52%) resort to personal devices or unauthorised tools to complete their work – this is a significant governance and information security risk that many boards may not yet have visibility of,” Stewart comments.

Further, 28.6% of employees rely primarily on AI tools they sourced themselves.

The study notes that while 88% of employees agree that technology enables their best work, and 84% have access to AI tools, only 21% feel their employer is preparing them for an AI-enabled future.

AI readiness was among the three identified priority investment areas for executives seeking to improve both employee and business outcomes.

Bringing the AI adoption that is already happening within the employer’s environment is an opportunity to increase advocacy and reduce risk in a single move.

While people have access to AI tools, they are not necessarily being enabled to get the greatest value from them.

Another key lever for companies is IT support, which is the strongest driver of employee advocacy, job satisfaction and perceived value. Core infrastructure, particularly foundational systems and network performance, are critical to customer experience.

Quality IT support shows the strongest correlation with workforce outcomes tracked at board level, while core infrastructure, particularly the network, is the customer experience lever.