An employee reports that he’s having trouble installing the Authenticator app. He doesn’t understand it at all, doesn’t know how to do it, and asks if IT can take care of it for him. When you look at his phone with him, there are dozens of apps on it. Installed, logged in, and used daily. All from the exact same app store.
This is no exception. It’s a pattern you see in virtually every organization as soon as technology shifts from personal to business use. At home, everyone figures things out on their own. At the office, everything ends up with the IT department or the IT vendor, with the standard explanation: “That’s what IT is for, after all.”
That costs money, slows down projects, and makes it harder to implement security measures than necessary. In this article, you’ll learn where this behavior comes from, what it costs your organization, and what approach actually works in practice.
Why does a personal app work but a business app doesn’t?
Let’s compare the two situations side by side. The same person, the same phone, the same app store, the same steps. At home, he installs a banking app, creates an account, goes through an identity verification process, and sets a PIN. At work, he can’t even install a 15-megabyte app.
The difference isn’t in skill. The difference lies in three things.
- Ownership. At home, it’s your problem. If the app doesn’t work, you can’t access your money. At the office, it’s the organization’s problem, and they have a department dedicated to handling it.
- Availability of an alternative. At home, there’s no help desk. At the office, there is—and it responds quickly and politely.
- Explicit expectations. At home, everyone knows they have to figure it out on their own. At the office, no one has ever specified what’s expected of employees in this regard.
The underlying reason is usually time. I don’t have time to go through that manual. In practice, though, there’s plenty of time to walk over to the IT department, wait until someone is available, explain the problem, wait for the solution, check if it works, and respond to the ticket. That easily adds up to half an hour. The manual takes two minutes.
Furthermore, the argument that employees lack sufficient digital skills does not hold up well. According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), 84 percent of the Dutch population possessed at least basic digital skills in 2025, making the Netherlands a leader in the European Union. Installing apps is explicitly included among those measured basic skills. See the CBS figures.
Is this a lack of knowledge or a lack of will?
Some employees genuinely get stuck. That group is usually smaller than expected and simply deserves help. There’s no blame involved.
But there’s also a group that knows exactly how their own phone works and who, as soon as it gets down to business, fall back on “I can’t do that.” That’s not a knowledge problem; it’s a choice. And that choice is entirely rational, because there’s nothing in it for them. No one calls them out on it, no agreement has been made about it, and the issue is resolved within a day.
The awkward part of this story is that organizations themselves perpetuate this behavior. IT departments pride themselves on providing quick assistance and taking care of everything. Managers view it as an IT issue and leave it at that. And so it remains: it just has to work—the only expectation that’s ever been stated out loud.
By the way, the idea that it just has to work is entirely valid when it comes to infrastructure. The network, the workstation, and access should work without anyone even having to think about them. But installing an app on a phone isn’t infrastructure. It’s a two-minute task that the same person can do effortlessly at home.
What does it cost when employees leave everything up to IT?
The costs are more visible than most organizations realize.
- A stream of tickets that consists largely of routine tasks. Passwords, restart procedures, printers, connections, and installations. Work that doesn’t get anyone anywhere.
- Research by Gartner, cited by NetGain Technologies, shows that only 9 percent of end users fully resolve a problem through self-service. The rest end up contacting a support agent anyway.
- Direct costs per incident. Forrester, as cited by Specops Software, estimates the cost at approximately $70 per password reset. Multiply that by the number of resets per month, and you have a specific amount.
- Security bottlenecks. Multi-factor authentication, a new workplace environment, or a migration can stall because employees aren’t on board. The rollout takes months longer than planned, with all the associated risks in the meantime.
- Shadow IT. Anyone who feels that business technology is too complicated turns to personal tools that actually work. As a result, company data leaves your environment unnoticed.
- Time lost by the employee. Every half hour spent waiting for support is half an hour not working. Those costs don’t appear on any IT invoice, but they’re still there.
What actually works to increase digital self-reliance?
Trying to lecture users doesn’t work. What does work is making the behavior unappealing and making the alternative easier.
Make this expectation clear, and do so on behalf of the executive board or management—not from IT. As long as the message comes from the IT department, it sounds like a department that wants to cut back on work. If the same message comes from the executive board, then it’s company policy. Include basic digital skills in job descriptions and onboarding, just as you expect someone to check their email and log their hours.
Make self-service faster than going to IT. Short instructions in plain language, no more than three steps, with screenshots, and available right where the problem arises. Not buried somewhere deep in an intranet that no one ever searches. If following the instructions takes longer than creating a ticket, everyone will rightly choose to create a ticket.
See which issues recur every month. That list is usually short and surprisingly predictable. Addressing recurring issues often yields better results than implementing a new ticketing system.
Don’t make exceptions for management. As soon as the director has IT install his own app, the agreement is dead. In practice, this is the point at which most initiatives fail.
And continue to make that distinction. Help those who genuinely can’t manage it without question. Those who simply won’t do it will receive help the first time and a referral the second time. Making that distinction is uncomfortable, but without it, nothing will change.
What objections do you hear about this, and are they valid?
The fact is, our people just aren’t digitally savvy. That’s partly true, but mostly not. Take a look at that same employee’s personal phone, and the picture usually changes. For the group that really can’t manage on their own, targeted guidance is the solution—not a one-size-fits-all policy.
We pay for IT precisely so that employees don’t have to spend time on it. That makes sense, but you’re actually paying twice: once for the support and once for the employee’s time spent waiting. Besides, the question isn’t whether someone should manage servers themselves, but whether someone can install an app on their own.
If we start demanding this, we’ll run into trouble with our employees. That risk only exists if you demand something without offering anything in return. Always combine the agreement with practical instructions and support for those who are struggling, and most of the resistance will disappear.
Our help desk resolves the issue quickly anyway. Exactly. That’s why everyone calls. Fast service is nice and, at the same time, confirms that there’s no need to think things through. That’s not an argument for worse service, but rather for a different order of priority.
This is simply part of IT’s job. When it comes to infrastructure and anything that requires permissions or management: yes. When it comes to tasks that someone performs at home every day: no.
What checklist do you use to tackle this?
Seven steps you can take without a project and without any additional investment.
- Identify the ten reports that recur every month. Without that overview, every discussion is based on gut feeling.
- For each report, determine whether it’s truly an IT issue or a task that an employee can handle on their own.
- For the second category, write instructions of no more than three steps, in plain language, with screenshots.
- Place those instructions where the question arises—for example, in the ticket form itself before someone clicks “Submit.”
- Have management articulate the expectations in their own words, and reiterate them to every new employee.
- Identify who will receive extra guidance and ensure that this group actually receives it.
- After three months, check again to see what reports are coming in. If the list hasn’t changed, the problem lies with the approach, not with the employees.
What is New Yard’s take on this?
New Yard is an informative and advisory partner in the field of the digital workplace. We do not carry out the work ourselves, nor do we take over management. What we do is help you assess whether your workplace is set up in a way that allows employees to be self-sufficient, and where you are wasting unnecessary capacity on work that belongs elsewhere.
In our conversations with SME organizations, this topic almost always comes up, usually framed as a complaint about the help desk or a migration that isn’t moving forward. Almost without exception, the core issue is the same: there was never a clear agreement on what employees do themselves and what IT does. Having that conversation takes an hour. Not having it takes years.
What are the benefits of a no-obligation introductory meeting?
If this article resonates with you, a conversation is the quickest way to determine whether there’s anything to be gained here. During a no-obligation introductory meeting, we’ll take a look at your situation together: where your support needs are coming from, which of them can be avoided, and which steps are realistic for your organization to take.
No sales pitch and no quote at the end—just an honest assessment of where you stand. Contact us at newyard.nl to schedule a meeting.