Transforming employees’ experience of digital technology

Mark Cresswell at Scalable Software explains how IT leaders can drive employee productivity

According to the Productivity Institute, productivity levels in the UK must double over the next year for the country to maintain the GDP growth of the past decade. Many business leaders have been quick to point the finger at remote and hybrid working, which has resulted in some companies enforcing return to office (RTO) mandates.

Our recent research backs this up, with 90% of IT leaders saying hybrid working is creating ‘productivity paranoia’ in their organisation.

However, while hybrid working is an easy target, something far more impactful but less visible is at play – the digital employee experience (DEX).

Today’s workplaces are increasingly digital. Poor DEX wipes out nearly four hours a week for the average employee as they battle against the digital friction caused by non-performant technology, unnecessarily complicated digital processes, and ‘notification overload’ from a host of applications.

Unproductive measures of productivity

Part of the reason the productivity crisis has been so pervasive is because measuring the problem is extremely difficult. While most IT teams have plenty of established metrics in place – including evaluating the volume of outputs, using time tracking software, or asking employees to self-report – most are too narrow in focus or subjective to give meaningful insight into how effectively employees are working and what their digital experience is.

For many knowledge-based roles, it’s hard to quantify a measurable output in the first place. And even when there is an objective output to measure, that figure offers limited insight.

Truly measuring productivity requires more nuance. For example, a financial services organisation might consider five mortgage originations processed per hour by a customer service agent as a benchmark for a high level of output, and so deem employees completing five originations as productive.

But relying on a standalone number gives no insight into how that task was completed, what digital friction existed along the way, or if the origination workflow could be optimised for greater productivity. For instance, by eliminating digital friction, and streamlining the workflow, the organisation could boost the number of originations by 20% for the same level of effort.

Consequently, without any ability to accurately measure this kind of digital experience, organisations are left blind as to how to employees can become more productive.                           

Who cares about DEX?

The wholesale shift to hybrid working has brought this kind of digital experience and productivity analysis into sharp relief. It might be easy to assume that a frictionless digital experience is a “nice-to-have” rather than a “must-have”.

Yet it is a crucial part of job satisfaction for knowledge workers, with nearly a third (29%) saying that dealing with digital friction has made them want to quit – a concerning statistic given that the average cost of replacing an employee is nearly double their annual salary.

Fortunately, the situation is changing, with both IT leaders and knowledge workers agreeing on the top three sources of digital friction that contribute to poor DEX, namely:

• Having to toggle between applications repeatedly to find information or complete a task
• Applications that repeatedly freeze, crash or load slowly
• Too many communication channels to manage resulting in “notification overload” 

As a result of this developing alignment between IT and the wider business, there is a growing consensus and urgency around the need for IT departments to move away from their traditional workstation’s ‘break/fix’ role. The emphasis needs to evolve into creating the best digital workplace for the modern hybrid enterprise.

The problem is that most IT teams lack access to the DEX observability data that allows them to improve the digital workplace. 

More than just ‘break/fix’

To make the shift away from ‘break/fix’, IT departments need tools that can provide visibility across the organisation to surface previously hidden inefficiencies. For example, identifying if employees have to access an additional application to progress the workflow because of missing information or functionality, or spotting which parts of a workflow be automated to reduce the need to switch apps.

Considering that the average worker switches between more than 10 applications an hour, there is almost certainly significant scope for consolidation in the vast majority of businesses. Crucially, such measures not only improve productivity but reduce the risk of information and knowledge siloes and make it easier for employees to collaborate.

Additionally, such insights enable IT teams to make data-driven investment and prioritisation decisions. Understanding who the top performers are in a department allows IT to replicate their successful workflows for other employees, as well as looking to automate the most time-consuming and repetitive tasks.

At the same time, if IT teams have genuine visibility into how work is being done, they can accurately assess the risks of any proposed change and understand whether there are users or tasks who would be significantly inconvenienced if migrated to a new application. This allows the most impactful improvements to be made in a way that minimises upheaval for all employees.

Time for a change

British companies have been trying to solve the productivity crisis but the solutions tried so far aren’t working. So, rather than persisting with outdated metrics and worrying about hybrid working, businesses must start asking more sophisticated questions and giving both IT teams and employees the support they need to tackle one of the biggest productivity barriers that exists by fixing their DEX.

And for those organisations that make the leap, the benefits will be tremendous – both in terms of a happier, more engaged workforce, but also by creating a much healthier bottom line.

Mark Cresswell is a Co-Founder of Scalable Software

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com and Jirapong Manustrong