Is your digital workplace up to the job? Companies now need to enable multiple workers in multiple locations with the tools to be productive, but many employers still fall short of the expected and productive employee experience (EX). However, there are ways to enhance EX and become a more effective company.
It used to be that the bad employee experience was the remote one, the work-from-home EX. Employees could be stuck trying to be productive using unsuitable devices and slow connectivity while sitting at their kitchen table. Today, it is often the in-office experience that’s worse, with 67% of employees saying their digital experience outside work is better than that of the company premises.
I’ve lost count of how often I’ve visited offices and seen digital workplaces underused or inadequately provisioned. That might be an expensive video room that sits there unused because employees haven’t been properly trained. Or companies have rolled out digital workplace tools and unified communication and collaboration (UC&C) solutions and then not shown employees how to use them adequately, so adoption remains low - and adoption drives outcomes and benefits. Sometimes, I’ve seen cases where employees weren’t involved in the selection of new tools, so they feel forced into using them and often react negatively.
Research by Gartner found that almost two-thirds of companies still don’t have effective digital workplaces that meet employees’ needs. It predicts that by 2025, over 70% of EX initiatives still won’t deliver a tangible business impact because of a lack of alignment between business and IT over expected outcomes. This is despite increased investment, as 24% of companies say they intend to continue increasing spending on digital workplaces.
It can all add up to a confused, counterproductive situation and comes at a time when employers should show employees how much they value them by enabling and empowering them.
A constantly-changing landscape
The rapid increase in home and remote working created by the pandemic meant employers had to quickly enable workers with remote working tools. It was a cultural shift in which some people were initially confused by the new ways of working, but they adapted, and today many no longer want to return to the in-office working format.
The shift was initially a technical exercise involving secure remote access, VPNs, and fast, reliable connectivity. A consequence of that, however, was that employees became more empowered in the employee/employer relationship than they had previously been. More employees began to demand more remote work options and to expect flexible working as standard in contracts and job offers.
Today, employers must offer an EX and a digital workplace that actively retains existing teams and makes them more attractive to talented prospective employees. You need to provide more than a job; you need to offer an experience that meets expectations in terms of devices, mindset, purpose, and more. After all, if you want to attract the best new employees, you must meet them on their terms – 91% of Gen Z workers say an employer’s digital tools and EX is a factor in choosing between job offers. For example, some companies enforce a “No GenAI tools” policy, which can make workers secretively use GenAI anyway, or simply discourage talented workers from wanting to work for you.
Who makes your EX decisions?
EX is something that companies should have a greater focus on. There are defined heads responsible for other key strategic business departments, initiatives, and projects, so why not EX?
Many departments contribute to creating the employee workplace, from HR to facilities to IT to building management. So, it’s unsurprising it can lack clear vision or direction. Without a holistic approach to building a workplace experience, overseeing all the elements involved in EX, and monitoring for success and where you could improve, gaps will inevitably appear.
Someone needs to own the workplace experience from end to end. This could be a digital EX manager tasked with generating the workplace experience brief and managing all the many aspects of EX to build a digital workplace that delivers. And a key responsibility should be about retaining existing employees and attracting talented new ones.
According to LinkedIn the chief employee experience officer (CEEO) is one of the fastest-growing roles in the US, but it still omits the all-important D for Digital. So, for now, it would seem that companies need expert assistance in pulling all the digital, EX, and worker enablement together into an effective whole.
How to make your EX more effective
The digital workplace and EX will keep changing and evolving, so employers must keep changing with them. As just one example, AI and GenAI are growing in use in the workplace now and changing the experience again, bringing disruption just as companies and workers are getting used to another set of changes.
One way to keep your EX and digital workplace up to speed is by using a maturity assessment to gauge your EX effectiveness at all levels. By working with a strategic digital workplace partner like Orange Business, and asking the right questions of your EX, you can evaluate where you are in relation to the market and identify gaps in your EX. A comprehensive assessment of your EX capabilities makes sense in today’s world; it’s effectively carrying out due diligence on a key strategic element of your business, and again, you do that kind of evaluation or audit of other areas, so why not EX?
It's a process that begins with talking to different employees from different departments. Ask them how satisfied they are with the EX you provide, listen to their answers, analyze their feedback, and implement their recommendations. You do this with customers to improve customer experience (CX), so it makes sense to do it for EX, too.
Once you have established that baseline of employee expectations, you can take a deeper dive and evaluate other areas, like strategy and culture. You might find you can make relatively quick improvements to EX simply by pulling disparate parts of your company closer together. For example, I’ve worked with companies that have IT in a different building from the rest of the operation but in the same city, and they simply don’t talk to each other.
Ultimately, a strong digital workplace and EX directly impact your bottom line today. Research by Salesforce has found that by focusing on improving EX, companies can potentially increase revenue by up to 50% or more, and profits by nearly as much. Sounds like something worth investigating, doesn’t it?
Vivien is responsible for driving and developing the transformation of the digital workspace for Orange Business European customers and alignment with key partners. He has almost two decades of experience in software development, sales, data and marketing in various fields such as medical research, information technology and telecoms. For more than 10 years serving Orange Business' international customers, he has focused on delivering innovative and customer-centric solutions.