Why did we study digital employee experience
The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation, allowing more employees to work from the comfort of their homes. But when it comes to technology, how much “comfort” has remote work brought? Our research reveals that many companies are still unprepared for remote work. But for those who do, what separates businesses that provide superior technology experience to their employees?
To understand what makes a business a digital employee experience (DEX) leader, Origami surveyed 200 employees from North America, Europe, and Oceania. The results suggest that DEX leaders are more likely to track technology experience metrics and collaborate with other departments on a software selection. Those activities in turn lead to better leadership support and more resources to improve, manage and maintain a digital workplace.
With remote work here to stay, securing resources for digital experience initiatives is crucial to keeping employees engaged and retaining top talent. The responses to the survey point to a gap in tech management practices that might affect the leadership buy-in. Businesses that don’t measure technology ease-of-use and don’t involve other stakeholders in the software selection conversation might hurt their chances of getting C-Suite support.
How was the study conducted
Our insights are based on a random sample of 200 employees from different companies who self-identified as leaders and individual contributors at these organizations. The respondents were in some way a part of an active intranet improvement project in 2021. The majority of them come from IT (23%), HR (23%) and Internal comms (15%), with (45.5%) representing 100-1000 employee-size companies.
The survey included a series of 14-17 questions with responses collected via an online form. The responses were split into segments, including company size and the respondent job role. These segments allowed Origami to get a more accurate picture specific to organization size.
Top Findings
While companies across the globe have had more than 18 months to ramp up remote work capabilities, many organizations are still woefully unprepared for remote work. Three key challenges—remote access technology, lack of documented policies and procedures, and nonexistent performance management.
To make the best out of remote work tools, companies should make more improvements to their digital employee experience. As of now, only the minority of SMBs and Mid-market is focusing on workplace tech experience. We called them “DEX Leaders”. DEX leaders are the companies that rated the quality of their workplace tech as “high”. The survey defined digital employee experience as “High” if it is consistently revisited and improved or key improvements to the workplace tech are underway.
Now, the question is what do DEX Leaders do differently?
As it turned out, they are more likely to track their technology ease-of-use and share improvements with the leadership team on a regular basis. This might give them an edge when presenting a business case to their leadership or stakeholders. As a result, they are more likely to get their budget approved.
They are also more collaborative during software selection.
Workplace tech leaders are more likely to have IT working with other departments on a software selection. So, their software decisions are less likely to be made in silos. This approach might help them reach a consensus with stakeholders and knock software adoption rates out of the park post-launch.
What other businesses can learn from DEX Leaders?
Businesses will benefit from regularly tracking technology experience metrics such as ease of use. Measuring technology ease of use will help to build a business case for workplace tech improvements and demonstrate the value of DEX initiatives.
Following DEX leaders will help businesses overcome the current leadership support gap. They will see more success with stakeholder consensus if they approach a technology initiative with a mindset of co-creation, starting with a software selection collaboration.
Our team is working on making these and many more findings available in a Downloadable PDF format.
Once a PDF is available, we’ll add a link here.