Digital Employee Experience in a Hybrid World

Work styles continue to evolve. The jury is still out on remote working. Many leaders and organizations are convinced that ‘productivity paranoia’ is real. At the other end of the spectrum, many organizations are excited about the global talent that remote working has provided access to. On one hand, research shows innovation takes a beating due to lack of collaboration while on the other hand, enterprises are increasingly conscious of the environmental impact of daily commutes to the office. There are myriad reasons supporting both schools of thought. The equilibrium, as is often the case, will be somewhere in between – hybrid! Where exactly on the "hybrid continuum" they will find their sweet spot is something that will still evolve. Two-thirds of the leaders expect their organizations to adopt hybrid work. What we are witnessing right now is organizations trying to identify that sweet spot. Irrespective of the paradigm that holds sway, what is clear is that when employees are in the office, it has to be worth their time and effort.

One of the important factors that plays a critical role in ensuring a seamless experience for the employees irrespective of their place of work is Digital Employee Experience (DEX). It is now a centrepiece of every organization’s workplace strategy. As per Forrester, 60% of organizations indicate that improving the experience of employees is a key IT objective. It has become a critical factor in optimizing talent and positively impacting business results.

So, the Digital Workplace strategy needs to evolve to support new ways of working. Historically, IT has prioritized cost, operational efficiency, and security as far as digital workplace strategies go. These IT priorities will still matter as budgets will never be enough to cover CIOs' wish lists. However, the focus is shifting to DEX as it is a critical component of the overall employee experience (EX). A well-defined DEX strategy increases employee engagement, enablement, and empowerment, leading to better business outcomes. Per Forrester, a good DEX strongly correlates with high employee engagement, which ultimately impacts employee retention — 93% of employees with a high EX index score plan to stay with their organization for the next year, compared with only 49% of employees with a low EX index score. In keeping with the new priorities, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) which have focused on efficiency metrics like uptime, availability, and mean time to respond/resolve are giving way to Experience Level Agreements (XLAs) that are more meaningful measures of how technology impacts employees.

The DEX journey is in the nascent stages for most organizations. As per Gartner’s Workplace Maturity Model survey, 85% of the organizations are in Levels 1 & 2 and the remaining 15% are in Level 3, which is the final destination that most IT organizations try to be at. Only 3 organizations are in Level 4 or 5. Most digital workplace strategies are technology-driven and vendor-influenced, leading to poor alignment with the unique needs of each organization and different employee personas. Most digital workplace teams are ill-equipped to support and scale the evolving needs of the business. The Digital Workplace leaders don’t have the tools or processes in place to effectively measure DEX today. As of late 2022, only 13% of the organizations had deployed DEX tools, per Forrester.

Investing in DEX is critical to delivering business outcomes. It starts with forming and communicating a DEX vision to all employees. Gartner predicts that by 2025, over 70% of DEX-related initiatives will fail to deliver a tangible impact due to a lack of alignment over expected outcomes between business and IT. And that, through 2027, multidisciplinary digital workplace teams that blend business and technology roles will be 50% more likely to deliver positive outcomes than those formed by IT alone.

Apart from alignment with the business leaders, employee buy-in is extremely important when it comes to the end-user computing space. Keep in mind we are dealing with individuals with varying degrees of digital dexterity. So, a plan to carry them along the journey is a key cornerstone to a successful digital workplace strategy. Apart from regular communication, once the new tech is deployed, it is important to adequately train employees on the same. Without communication and enablement, adoption of the new technologies would be poor, putting paid to all the efforts being made to transform the organization into a thriving Digital Workplace.

The final point is about the choice of technology. There are many options available. And a lot of hype surrounding popular technologies. It would augur well for organizations to thoroughly evaluate the tools to determine which technologies align best with IT and business goals.

What makes people the happiest at work is the ability to do their most important tasks efficiently and effectively every day. A banker, a manufacturer, a pharmacist, an airline pilot, an insurer - no one comes to work to deal with IT issues. So, if IT can proactively and automatically solve their problems and eliminate the need for them to be on a call with the service desk for 15 minutes or chat with a bot for 30 minutes, it is not only a huge productivity boost for the employees but a great experience as well. IT can consider itself successful if it can enable employees to do their work without making its presence felt. Sometimes, no experience is the best experience you can have!

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