Ivanti puts spotlight on power of employee digital experiences

Ivanti has announced the results of its State of the Digital Employee Experience (DEX) study. Ivanti worked with global digital transformation experts and surveyed 10,000 office workers, IT professionals and the C-Suite to evaluate the level of prioritisation and adoption of DEX in organisations and how it shapes the daily working experiences for employees.

The report revealed that 49% of employees are frustrated by the tech and tools their organisation provides and 64% believe that the way they interact with technology directly impacts morale.

In fact, 26% of employees are considering quitting their jobs because they lack suitable tech, 42% have spent their own money on better tech to work more productively, and 65% believe they would be more productive if they had better technology at their disposal.

Conflicting views remain between C-Suite, IT and employees when it comes to the future of work and technology's role in enabling the culture of hybrid work.

Just 13% of knowledge workers prefer to work exclusively from the office, yet 56% of CXOs still feel that employees need to be in the office to be productive, although 74% of the C-Suite report they are more productive since the start of the pandemic - showing a disconnect between what they have experienced and what they believe employees need to do to be productive, the researchers state.

Globally the C-Suite's number one priority was employee productivity, with workplace culture and employee satisfaction falling further down the list. Furthermore, 62% of the C-Suite concedes that leadership prioritises profitability over employee experience.

As employee experience continues to fall to the bottom of the C-Suite agenda, IT will continue to deprioritise it on theirs, with only 21% of IT leaders considering the end user experience to be the main priority when selecting new tools.

"Ensuring positive employee digital experiences is the new cornerstone of modern business IT management," noted Steve Brasen, research director with Enterprise Management Associates.

Brasen says, "The improvement of workforce productivity helps attract and retain essential talent, accelerates business agility and competitiveness, reduces operational costs, and drives organisational success and profitability. Understanding DEX requirements is the key to adapting related technologies and practices that will support each organisation's unique environment.

According to the researchers, innovation is the driving force behind the rise of hybrid work, but the unfortunate truth is that many organisations still experience major challenges in its adoption.

The top challenges reported by office workers include too many emails or chat messages (28%), a lack of connection to coworkers (27%), and software not working properly (23%). But despite these challenges and executive scepticism, all groups reported being more productive in the era of hybrid work, highlighting the fact that it is not so much the place of work that impacts productivity, but the experience that people have when interacting with technology.

Ivanti CEO Jeff Abbott says, "The Everywhere Workplace has forever changed employee expectations when it comes to where they work, how they work, and what device they work on.

"How employees interact with technology and their satisfaction with that experience directly relates to the success and value they deliver to the organisation. The Digital Employee Experience should be a board level priority, and IT teams are poised to be strategic leaders in their organisation to make it happen.

The growing variety of devices and networks that hybrid workers use has greatly expanded the inventory of assets that IT teams need to manage, but 32% of IT professionals still use spreadsheets to track these assets and only 47% agree completely that their organisations have full visibility into every device that attempts to access their network.

One of the biggest challenges facing IT leaders today is the need to enable a seamless end user experience while maintaining robust security. The challenge becomes more complex when there is pressure from the top to bypass security measures, with 49% of C-level executives reporting they have requested to bypass one or more security measures in the last year.

Abbott says, "Maintaining a secure environment and focusing on the digital employee experience are two inseparable elements of any digital transformation.

"In the war for talent a key differentiator for organisations is providing an exceptional and secure digital experience. We believe that organisations not prioritising how their employees experience technology is a contributing factor for the great resignation.

With the availability of innovative new technologies that both enable and support hybrid workforces, IT now has the opportunity to make a positive impact on broader organisational strategy, the researchers conclude. By taking ownership of the digital employee experience and working closely with the C-suite to accomplish common goals, IT can drive better business outcomes - from employee productivity to workforce retention.