Topic starter
12/06/2026 10:15 pm
TL;DR: Password problems are still disrupting employee productivity and pushing users toward workarounds, according to Axiad’s survey of 2,000 US office workers, which found 60% had job interruptions and just under 60% had contacted IT after lockouts. Passwordless only works when authentication is simpler, phishing-resistant, and built around the user experience.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Axiad: “Say Goodbye to Passwords for Good, Your Employees Will Thank You”.
By the numbers:
- 60% of US workers surveyed said problems with passwords have stopped them from doing their jobs.
- Just under 60% said they had to contact the IT department at their workplace because they were locked out of their computer.
Key questions
Q: How should security teams implement passwordless authentication without increasing access risk?
A: Security teams should implement passwordless in stages, starting with low-risk use cases and then expanding only after enrollment, recovery, and session controls are proven.
Q: Why do passwordless programmes still need phishing resistance?
A: Because removing a password does not automatically remove replay, phishing, or account takeover risk.
Q: What are the biggest operational failures in passwordless rollouts?
A: The most common failures are weak recovery, inconsistent revocation, and fragmented administration across platforms.
Practitioner guidance
- Map every fallback path Document how employees regain access when the primary passwordless method fails, including IT help desk resets, alternate authenticators, and device recovery.
- Reduce authentication friction before scale-out Pilot passwordless with user groups that generate the most lockouts and measure whether sign-in time, contact rate, and recovery steps improve.
- Prioritise phishing-resistant methods Prefer authenticators that cannot be replayed or phished and retire weaker fallback methods that still allow password-style recovery.
Bottom line: Passwordless authentication only improves security when it also reduces employee friction and closes the workaround paths that passwords create.
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13/06/2026 12:54 am
Passwordless succeeds or fails as an employee workflow, not as an authentication slogan. The article shows that the business problem is not simply password weakness but user friction that drives workaround behaviour. When workers can complete tasks faster by reusing old credentials or calling IT, the intended control loses authority. Identity teams should judge passwordless by behavioural adoption and support burden, not by deployment counts alone.
A few things that frame the scale:
- According to Forrester Research, a single password reset can cost around $70.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Should organisations replace passwords everywhere before improving password recovery?
A: No. Teams should first make recovery and support paths consistent, because users judge the new authentication model by what happens when something goes wrong. If fallback is messy, passwordless adoption suffers even when the primary login is strong. A clean recovery design is part of the control, not an afterthought.
👉 Read our full editorial: Passwordless authentication for employees: what identity teams need to know