Future Of Work: How To Fix The Digital Employee Experience Blind Spot

Published on April 9, 2021 - By Cecilia Amador de San José

• During Group Futurista’s recent Future of Digital Workplace Webinar” experts took the virtual stage to address key challenges and opportunities in the digital workplace realm.   
• Dan Salinas, from Lakeside Software, spoke about technology’s impact on the employee experience, and why companies are struggling with creating a positive digital employee experience.  
• There’s a big divide between what employees feel about their interactions with technology and what the company’s IT department can actually see; this leads to blind spots.  

During Group Futurista’s recent “Future of Digital Workplace Webinar” experts took the virtual stage to address key challenges and opportunities in digital workplace realm.  

Topics of discussion included: 

• Digital workplace migration: how to get your workforce started on the right track. 
• Digital workplace technologies from nice-to-have to must-have status quo. 
• Reimagining the Digital Workplace of Tomorrow with Cloud 
• Cyber and information security challenges across your digital workplace. 

Improving the DEX: Identifying and Fixing Blind spots  

Dan Salinas, VP Global Sales and Business Development, Lakeside Software, gave a keynote presentation about closing the digital divide. Specifically, Salinas spoke about technology’s impact on the employee experience, and why companies are struggling with creating a positive digital employee experience (DEX).  

So, why does the digital employee experience matter? 

Because companies with a highly engaged workforce simply perform better. According to research cited by Salinas, organizations with highly engaged employees experience: 

• 270 additional annual working hours per employee 
• 59% less employee turnover 
• 21% greater profitability.  

But, what does technology have to do with the employee experience? 

Quite a lot.  

Data shows that technology represents 30% of the overall experience an employee has in the company. This means that technology can greatly contribute to or significantly take away from the employee experience.  

Unfortunately, there’s a big divide between what employees feel about their interactions with technology and what the company’s IT department can actually see.  

This creates blind spots in how a company deploys its technology, which can lead to a negative digital employee experience.  

“There’s a big gap on what IT wants to deliver and what it actually delivers.” 

This is causing major frustration with employees, as “tech that doesn’t perform gets in the way of us doing our jobs,” Salinas stated.  

Why do these blind spots exist? 

Because IT doesn’t see all the problems a user is having. In fact, most IT departments only know about problems a user is having when a user takes the time to call in and file a report. Unfortunately, “lots, if not most, problems are never reporter, or they are reported only sporadically.  

As a result, IT departments tend to be reactive rather than proactive.  

Consequences of DEX Blind Spots: 

• IT can’t fix what it doesn’t know about 
• Extra IT staff may be needed to handle harder to resolve issues 
• IT lacks detailed data to drive cost savings initiatives 
• End users complain loudly to management 
• Customer service, recruiting, and retention suffer as a result.  

How to Fix the Blind Spots 

Salinas argues that in order to remove blind spots, IT departments need to be proactive rather than reactive.  

To make the change from reactive to proactive, Salinas outlines the following steps: 

1. Start with visibility. If companies have good visibility of what’s going on, they can better approach and predict potential issues. Visibility can be achieved through an intelligent dashboard.  
2. Incorporate AIOps. For example, automated sensors that detect issues before they become major incidents. AIOps can help IT departments identify hotspots of where issues are happening.  
3. Implement multiple ways to remediate. It’s important for IT departments to have a system of how to respond to specific issues. Some issues can be solved by users themselves, through a button for example. Other issues can be solved through assistance from the IT department, and ideally some issues will be solved through automation.  

By improving the digital employee experience, companies can: 

• Drive productivity 
• Better support remote and in-office workers 
• Shorten resolve times 
• Identify employee bottlenecks.