As we look towards 2025, the most successful organizations will develop their digital workplace experience to enhance productivity and boost employee engagement. The onus is on businesses to provide an efficient digital workplace that helps employees to do their jobs in the most optimal way. Integrating advanced workstyle analytics with a human-centered approach is key to engaging and empowering employees.
Earlier this year, our research highlighted that employees lose nearly four hours a week on average because of digital employee experience (DEX) failings – almost 10% of the working week. Worryingly, our research also found that 43% of knowledge workers say poor DEX has reduced their job satisfaction. Businesses must make optimizing DEX a priority for 2025, and these are four key areas of opportunity to help drive this change:
Attracting and retaining the best talent by enhancing the work experience
In the year ahead, IT and HR leaders should focus on delivering a great digital working experience. That means prioritizing usability and accessibility to enhance engagement and productivity regardless of where someone is working from. This will support organizations in attracting and retaining the most talented employees. Organizations that force employees to work solely from an office, without flexibility, could lose out on the best talent in 2025.
Supporting teams’ wellbeing with insights powered by sophisticated analytics
Driven by insights from sophisticated DEX analytics, HR teams should seek to adopt proactive measures to detect early signs of burnout and disengagement like “quiet quitting”, and to understand how digital friction is affecting individuals. This allows HR leaders to focus on creating intelligent and empathetic workplaces that address the impact of the digital environment on teams. By prioritizing employee well-being and enabling managers to intervene with empathy, these challenges can be addressed before they escalate. Taking this approach will ensure organizations cultivate a thriving, resilient workforce.
Optimizing employee performance though workstyle analytics
Organizations should seek to fully realize the value of information contained within their ‘digital exhausts’ in 2025 by applying workstyle analytics – a core element of a holistic DEX approach. This will give rise to more objective assessments of employee work patterns, engagement and productivity. At the same time, employees who value the flexibility of hybrid working must work with management to ensure that such tooling is implemented transparently and with full consideration of the ethical and privacy issues.
Harnessing employee feedback loops to empower open communication
Organizations should seek to foster a culture of open communication, allowing for more agile responses to workers’ concerns and supporting improvement in employee engagement and satisfaction. To achieve this, businesses can make use of continuous feedback loops made possible by advanced DEX analytics – driven by employee sentiment data. This will create a culture where dialogue and feedback is welcome, to enrich the overall work environment.
Building a future-ready workplace
Organizations that put empathy, intelligence, and flexibility, driven by great digital technology at the heart of the workplace, stand to gain a lot in 2025. By prioritizing DEX optimization, organizations can become employers of choice, delivering a digital workplace that is productive, engaging and supportive of individual workstyles. Companies that adopt a human-centric approach will create a workplace fit for future challenges, ensuring a thriving workforce and a successful business.
