Content Debt is Quietly Breaking the Employee Content Experience

If technical debt is the hidden cost of technology shortcuts that make systems harder to maintain over time, content debt is what happens when information is created faster than it’s governed, updated, or retired.

Not only is it the silent killer of employee trust, but in employee-facing environments - HR portals, intranets, ServiceNow knowledge bases - it’s one of the biggest threats to productivity.

Most organizations think broken content is a writing problem, but the real impact of content debt is rarely measured because it doesn’t break systems.

It erodes employee experience, productivity, and outcomes.

The Hidden Productivity Drain: Searching Instead of Working

Employees spend significant time finding information to do their jobs or utilize benefits - about 2.8 hours per week looking for or requesting needed information, according to APQC.

The organization added that other drains include creating/using workarounds for broken systems and processes, recreating information that already exists, and seeking out the right people to answer questions or provide expertise.

Those drains are significant: Gartner’s 2023 Digital Worker Survey found that 47% of digital workers struggle to find the information they need to perform their jobs effectively.

Content Debt Isn’t Just Outdated Words

This is clear: content fails when it’s hard to find, hard to trust, and hard to act on.

Here’s how this plays out within companies:

• They double-check with others

• They open support cases for problems they can solve themselves

• They revert to workarounds outside official channels

• They waste time in meetings trying to clarify information

This is how content debt breaks the employee experience.

Cognitive Load Is the Real Work Tax

Every time an employee has to pause, re-evaluate, or agonize over whether content is accurate, they incur cognitive load - the mental effort required just to decide how to proceed.

Research shows that when tasks are ambiguous - like deciding whether a knowledge article is accurate -  mental effort skyrockets, reducing overall productivity. Though not specific to content, studies on structured vs. unstructured task work show that knowledge workers spend a large portion of their time on information interaction rather than on value creation.

Self-Service Fails Without Governance

Given this context, it’s no surprise that self-service initiatives often fall short.

Employees reject experiences that make their work harder, not the tools. For example, employees don’t reject intranets, but the intranet’s lack of a quality content experience.

Even if what they’re looking for exists, if it’s buried behind outdated pages, lacks clarity or contradicts other guidance, then employees are resourceful enough to find work arounds - Slack, email, or submitting a case.

AI Reveals the Fault Lines Faster

All of this is accelerated by AI.

AI systems surface what’s there - good and bad - in seconds.

If content debt exists, then AI will present it prominently and spread confusion more widely.

McKinsey & Company’s report on AI puts it best - AI systems work or fail due to humans.

The Real Cost Doesn’t Show Up on Dashboards

Organizations often measure content output - but not the downstream cost of inferior content experiences.

When workers struggle to find needed information, it:

• Slows decision-making

• Increases context switching

• Forces rework

• Lowers confidence in systems designed to help

• Erodes engagement

Because these failures aren’t measured on a dashboard. They often go unnoticed and erode employee trust.

The Bottom Line

Employees don’t lose productivity because content is imperfect.

They lose productivity because content is unreliable, inconsistent, and hard to trust.

And in a world full of information, trust is the real currency of productivity.

Until organizations meet the content experience where it actually impacts work, in the moments people need to act, content debt will remain a silent killer of productivity.

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Not sure if content is helping or quietly hurting employees?

Use the Content Debt Self-Check to spot early warning signs before trust, self-service, and AI adoption break down.

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If our perspective resonates with you, The Employee Content Experience Playbook goes deeper into how employees actually experience content and why most organizations misdiagnose the problem.

It’s designed to reframe thinking, not prescribe solutions.