What Employees Are Doing to Work Faster That Leaders Never Approved
Most employees are not trying to bypass rules or take shortcuts for the wrong reasons. They are trying to get their work done.
Across many organizations, leaders are discovering a growing gap between how work is designed to happen and how it actually happens day to day. The disconnect is not driven by bad intent. It is driven by friction.
When processes feel slow, unclear, or overly rigid, people find their own ways to move forward.
This is where security and data protection risks quietly enters the picture.
What Employees Are Doing to Work Faster
Modern workplaces move fast. Expectations are high, timelines are compressed, and technology does not always keep pace with real workflows.
When employees hit friction, they look for efficiency. That often shows up as personal file-sharing tools, work forwarded to personal email accounts, data pasted into AI tools to speed up writing or analysis, spreadsheets created outside official systems, or free software adopted without approval.
From an employee perspective, these actions feel practical. From a leadership perspective, they create blind spots.
According to a report from McKinsey, employees spend nearly 20 percent of their workweek searching for information or duplicating efforts due to inefficient systems. When tools slow work down, people naturally work around them.
“Shadow Work” and What Leaders Miss
Shadow work refers to tasks, tools, or workflows that operate outside approved systems and processes, often without leadership’s awareness. It typically develops when official systems feel restrictive, processes are poorly documented, tools fail to integrate well, or expectations are unclear. In those moments, employees make practical judgment calls about how to get their work done.
This behavior signals that existing processes are not aligned with how work actually happens. Because the work continues to get done, leadership may not recognize the risk until something breaks, data is exposed, or a key employee leaves.
How Do Employee Workarounds Create Security and Compliance Risks?
Unofficial workarounds tend to feel efficient until the downside appears.
Sensitive information may be stored or shared in tools without proper security controls, increasing the risk of digital damages that are difficult to detect and even harder to unwind. Leadership loses visibility into where data lives and how decisions are made. Regulated information may be handled outside approved workflows, creating compliance exposure. Critical processes also become fragile when they depend on undocumented tools or personal systems, leaving the organization vulnerable when something changes or someone leaves.
According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report, 82 percent of breaches involve data stored in unmanaged or shadow IT environments. These risks rarely stem from malicious intent. They stem from lack of clarity and oversight.
Why IT Crackdowns Often Fail
When leaders uncover shadow work, the first response is often to tighten controls or issue broad restrictions. That reaction usually makes the problem worse. Heavy-handed crackdowns slow teams down, push workarounds further out of sight, and create mistrust between leadership and employees. People stop asking questions and start hiding how work actually gets done.
The problem is not that employees want to bypass rules. It is that rules are often unclear, impractical, or disconnected from real workflows.
Organizations shoul start by identifying where processes feel slow or confusing and where teams rely on workarounds. Then, clearly define which tools are approved, where data is allowed to live, and when exceptions are acceptable. When the same workarounds appear repeatedly, treat them as feedback that systems or processes need adjustment. Providing efficient, supported alternatives removes the need for risky shortcuts and brings work back into the open.
A Simple Leadership Check
Most leaders should be able to answer a few basic questions with confidence.
- Do we know where critical work actually happens?
- Are our processes designed for real workflows or just policy?
- Do employees feel safe asking for better tools or clearer guidance?
If the answers are unclear, shadow work is likely already happening.
Next Steps to Conducting Your Internal Audit
Employees will always look for faster ways to work. The risk appears when speed moves ahead of clear processes and expectations. When leaders design workflows that match how work actually happens and clearly define what is acceptable, efficiency and security can exist at the same time.
Clarity is how Eclipse Networks helps organizations align technology, process, and people so work can move faster without introducing unnecessary risk. Contact us today to get started.
