In this third and final part of our series covering key findings from our recent research, we conclude our deep dive into how enterprises are managing today’s digital workplaces. In this blog, we’re looking at how organizations measure digital employee experiences (DEX).
As we discussed in parts one and two, in modern hybrid digital workplaces with distributed teams and remote workers, it is difficult for organizations to know what experiences are like, and what is impacting how effective the workforce can be. Although IT teams do try to monitor DEX, the methods and tools used can be poorly integrated and unable to give the full context of employee digital experience. This could lead to employers thinking they know what kind of digital experience their employees have, when in reality, they don’t.
Making the intangible, tangible
We asked IT decision makers (ITDMs) what metrics they currently use to measure DEX in their organization. At a surface level (outside of those not monitoring DEX at all), these metrics might seem like effective measures. But the reality is that they shed little light on the digital experience that employees encounter. And that’s because they are not measures of DEX, but measures of IT performance.
- 67% track the volume of IT support tickets and requests
- 60% measure service desk performance
- 48% of organizations use employee self-assessment
- 7% reported not monitoring or scoring DEX at all
For instance, the only thing the number of service tickets shows is how many failures have been reported, it sheds no light on those that went unreported. The same is true of service desk performance, this doesn’t tell businesses about the digital experience of employees, but how well the service desk is operating against its SLAs. Employee self-assessments can also be unreliable as they only share half the picture, they are of little value without observation data to provide additional perspective. If an employee thinks that a process is working fine, they will likely report being happy, yet they might be wasting a lot of time taking additional, unnecessary steps without knowing. In addition, many individuals don’t respond to surveys and those that do can often sit at either end of the spectrum leading to a partial and potentially slanted view on employee experience.
The reliance on these limited measurements is symptomatic of how many IT teams operate today – by focusing on technology rather than the employee. With teams working from multiple locations, ITDMs need data that goes beyond IT failures. It’s not about looking just at the technology or why it failed, but on the holistic digital experience that employees have and how it can be improved.
Sophisticated purpose-built DEX solutions highlight the real-world experience of employees in any location to make the intangible, tangible. Drawing on intelligence and insights gathered from employee interactions with their supporting technology and application workflows, DEX analytics provide real-time data about employee experience. This data surfaces the digital friction that causes poor experiences and slows employees down, impacting productivity, so IT teams can act. From employees having to switch between multiple apps to complete a task, to dealing with data siloes or complex workflows, DEX analytics allow businesses to gain deep visibility into what is affecting the employees’ experience.
Prioritizing experience
IT teams already have point solutions in place to spot issues with technology performance, what they lack is a genuine understanding of experience. Businesses that continue to rely on outdated measurement techniques will find, at best, that their digital employee experience is substandard, and at worst, employees will leave. In fact, our earlier research of knowledge workers found poor DEX was the biggest driver of dissatisfaction among employees.
DEX analytics delivers insight that arms decision-makers across departments, from IT to HR, with quantifiable and actionable data points to improve DEX and ensure employees stay engaged and productive.
Check out our full report, The evolution of the IT department: From break/fix to the backbone of the modern enterprise, to learn more.
