- 45% of survey respondents say digital employee experience (DEX) is vital to business.
- 55% feel their technological setup and resources are fit to sustain great DEX.
- 21% believe DEX has significantly improved since the pandemic.
- 13% of surveyed employees are fully satisfied with their DEX.
That’s a sizeable gap between the first and second pair of numbers. So, if technology isn’t the problem, what’s making such a big difference?
While DEX may be a fairly new concept, this disjunct—between what technology can do, and what people actually know how to do with it—is hardly a new concern. In fact, it’s one that most organizations already know how to address, except that we’re accustomed to measuring usability with regard to external, rather than internal customers.
Here are key notions to remember:
Bring HR and Communications into the tech loop. A mistake many companies make is simply forwarding IT’s instructions, direct to end-users. Not only is the tech-speak usually lengthy and confusing, but what IT knows and what employees need to know are rarely the same thing. Your Communications team can help simplify and streamline information, and HR’s input on what your people really want can be invaluable.
Don’t rely on training to teach everyone what they need to know. A big reason Apple has been so successful is that they don’t expect their audience to learn how to use their devices – instead, they make their devices and interface intuitive to use. Clearly, we’re dealing with complex professional processes, but where we can make systems clear and organic for our people to operate and understand, we certainly should.
Create and sustain a focus group. At the end of the day, no one knows what will support and delight your employees better than the employees themselves. So you’ll want a group to evaluate not just your initial DEX-oriented setup, but all evolutions, moving forward. The composition of this focus group should also evolve, to guarantee that it doesn’t become an echo chamber, bouncing back only their own preferences.
In other words, it’s not enough to provide our personnel with the tech and tools they need to excel at their work. We also need to ensure that using said tech and tools is easy, if not effortless, as well as engaging – and maybe even enjoyable.
