To Improve Customer Experience, Improve the Digital Employee Experience
You
heard
about
a
nightmare
scenario
playing
out
for
peers
at
other
companies
and
hope
it
doesn’t
affect
yours.
You
heard
about
a
nightmare
scenario
playing
out
for
peers
at
other
companies
and
hope
it
doesn’t
affect
yours.
Trouble
tickets
are
rolling
in,
and
there’s
a
lack
of
qualified
people
to
address
security
alerts
and
help
desk
issues
right
when
customer
demand,
supply
shortages,
and
potential
threats
are
at
their
peak.
Even
with
flexible
remote
work
policies,
the
most
seasoned
employees
in
roles
such
as
customer
support,
data
science,
business
analysis,
and
DevSecOps
move
on
to
greener
pastures
and
leave—just
when
they
finally
seemed
to
figure
out
how
everything
works.
Why
is
an
exodus
of
skilled
knowledge
workers
becoming
a
recurring
pattern
in
customer-oriented
organizations,
and
what
can
IT
leaders
do
to
improve
their digital
employee
experience
(DEX) to
convince
them
to
stay?
The
great
hybrid
office
migration
A
few
lucky
“born
on
the
web”
companies
were
built
on
the
premise
of
100%
remote
work.
The
pandemic
of
2020
forced
the
rest
of
the
world
to
move
knowledge
workers
out
of
the
office
into
fully
or
partially
remote
work
models.
Migratory
employees
in
technology
roles
appreciated
the
newfound
ability
to
work
from
home
in
sweatpants
and
avoid
the
daily
commute.
Many
idealistically
vowed
never
to
return
to
work
for
an
employer
that
required
them
to
come
back
to
the
office.
Employers
benefitted
too,
releasing
some
of
their
real
estate
for
savings
on
facility
costs
and
reducing
travel
expenses.
Less
scrupulous
bosses
took
it
a
step
further,
capturing
additional
hours
in
the
workday
by
implementing
draconian
attention
monitoring
tools
or
letting
employees
stay
on
duty
beyond
typical
office
hours.
Now
that
the
pandemic
has
become
endemic,
some
companies
are
reversing
their
position
on
remote
work
and
asking
employees
to
come
back
into
the
office,
at
least
some
of
the
time.
We’re
settling
on
a
hybrid
model
of
digital
work.
In 2023,
58%
of
knowledge
workers in
the
United
States
will
continue
to
be
able
to
work
remotely
at
least
one
day
a
week,
while
38%
will
continue
as
full-time
remote
workers.
Despite
the
initial
novelty
of
having
pets
and
kids
hilariously
interrupting
Zoom
calls,
this
new
normal
of
blurring
the
lines
between
work
and
home
life
has
not
turned
out
to
be
all
unicorns
and
rainbows
for
digital
employees.
Dealing
with
digital
work
friction
Employers
used
to
be
able
to
tell
teams
to
stay
late
in
the
office
to
fulfill
a
rush
of
customer
orders,
or
be
on-call
to
respond
to
issues
on
weekends.
The
signs
of
employee
burnout
were
easy
to
predict
even
before
“the
great
resignation”
of
the
2020s.
CIOs
built
or
bought
applications
to
allow
virtual
work,
which
allowed
more
team
members
to
be
available
online
to
respond
to
requests
through
remote
access,
without
coming
into
the
office.
This
was
helpful,
but
unfortunately
the
burnout
rate
has
only
increased
for
today’s
digital
worker
who
may
have
lost
separation
between
work
and
home
life,
and
staffing
still
couldn’t
keep
up
with
workload.
A
Gartner
HR
study
recently estimated
that
24%
of
workers
would
likely
shift
to
a
new
job
in
2022–and
this
turnover
rate
is
especially
true
of
knowledge
workers
who
must
interact
daily
with
the
company’s
systems.
Compared
to
pre-pandemic
employee
sentiment,
20%
more
respondents
cited
their digital
work
experienceas
a
significant
contributing
factor
to
job
satisfaction.
Even
with
some
arbitrary
job
cuts
happening
at
larger
companies,
skilled
team
members
can
find
work
elsewhere
if
they
are
frustrated,
and
unfilled
roles
in
customer
service,
SecOps,
and
engineering
positions
are
still
common.
Potential
recruits
can
check
any
number
of
salary
disclosure
sites
to
figure
out
what
they
are
worth
on
the
market,
and
they
can
also
look
on
Glassdoor
to
see
why
employees
are
dissatisfied
working
at
a
company.
In
a
hybrid
work
world,
a
bad
employee
experience
is
not
always
about
low
pay,
long
hours
or
“mean
bosses”
anymore–it’s
about
digital
work
friction
that
inhibits
their
ability
to
deliver
meaningful
value.
Employee
expectations
of
DEX
All
employees
want
to
work
for
employers
with
fundamentals,
like
fair
compensation,
a
harassment-free
workplace,
and
work/life
balance.
In
specific,
digital
employees
have
a
unique
set
of
concerns
about
the
technology
environment
they
must
work
within,
since
in
many
cases
it
is
their
only
connection
to
co-workers
and
customers.
This
is
why
CIOs
spend
so
much
of
their
time
researching
the
digital
tools
employees
use
and
spinning
up
new
projects
to
upgrade
that
experience.
A
successful
DEX
technology
suite
can
positively
impact
employee
sentiment
if
it
delivers
for
them
on
three
dimensions:
Engagement: Are
employees
using
the
company’s
suite
of
productivity
tools,
issue
tracking,
collaboration,
and
system
monitoring
tools
on
a
daily
basis?
Individuals
want
self-service
platforms
that
will
work
on
their
target
workstation
or
devices,
but
they
also
need
education,
documentation,
and
expert
support
from
the
organization
to
maintain
successful
adoption.
Companies
can
measure
improved
engagement
through
monitoring
and
visibility
into
organizational,
team,
and
individual
usage
patterns,
but
more
importantly,
they
should
offer
mechanisms
for
a
positive
feedback
loop,
so
employees
can
register
their
preferences
and
concerns
about
the
suite.
Empowerment: Are
individuals,
teams
and
regions
authorized
for
just
the
analytic,
management,
and
problem-solving
tools
and
data
they
need
without
unnecessary
friction
or
distractions?
Employee
empowerment
is
a
continuous
struggle
for
many
companies
to
deliver,
as
permissions
for
analytics,
user
data,
work
items,
and
access
privileges
are
usually
highly
customized
to
meet
overlapping
work,
customer
requirements,
and
regulatory
regimes.
Empowered
employees
proactively
identify
emerging
demands
and
roadblocks,
and
effectively
take
action
to
collaborate
with
the
right
team
members
to
find
solutions.
Efficiency: Intelligent
automation
triages
and
prioritizes
important
customer
issues
for
teams,
and
helps
individuals
filter
through
irrelevant
alerts
from
disparate
systems
and
services.
Employees
progress
through
tasks
with
fewer
interruptions,
spend
less
time
on
pointless
root
cause
analysis,
and
remediate
resolutions
with
automated
actions.
All
employees
want
to
make
progress
on
goals.
The
upside
of
efficiency
is
almost
limitless
because
as
one
productivity
constraint
is
removed,
another
bottleneck
will
appear
upstream
or
downstream.
Enterprise
expectations
of
DEX
From
the
CIO’s
perspective,
DEX
is
best
thought
of
as
an
enterprise-wide
transformational
initiative
that
increases
the
value
of
critical
talent
over
time,
rather
than
as
a
project
that
delivers
short-term
gains.
The
customer
still
comes
first.
But
let’s
face
it,
there
are
already
enough
customer-facing
performance
metrics
in
the
world.
DEX
turns
measurement
and
metrics
inward,
then
captures
even
more
value
from
the
intentional
feedback
and
non-verbal
cues
provided
by
employees.
This
virtuous
cycle
of
continuous
feedback
and
improvement
of
the
‘three
E’s’
of
DEX
will
fuel
engagement,
empowerment,
and
efficiency
for
employees
and
executives–and
better
performance,
not
just
on
meeting
revenue
and
cost
targets,
but
in
terms
of
employee
satisfaction
and
higher
retention
rates.
The
Intellyx
Take
Work
has
changed
forever.
From
a
morale
perspective,
remote
workers
might
miss
something
about
the
camaraderie
of
an
office:
the
exciting
pre-launch
demo,
an
in-person
standup,
an
informal
desk
visit,
or
a
coffee
break
to
share
ideas
about
a
particular
issue
with
colleagues.
But
that
doesn’t
mean
we
can’t
make
DEX
the
best
it
can
be,
wherever
the
team
is
located.
Therefore,
every
organization
will
need
to
define
a
digital
employee
experience
that
engages
and
empowers
employees,
making
every
working
minute
a
more
efficient
use
of
time,
including
taking
some
well-earned
time
off
to
unplug
from
the
digital
world.
©2023
Intellyx
LLC.
At
the
time
of
writing,
Tanium
is
an
Intellyx
subscriber.
No
AI
chatbots
were
used
to
write
any
part
of
this
article.
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