Exit IT, enter digital employee experience: is your business ready for the big change?

Over the past year you’ve no doubt read articles, heard news or talked with a colleague about how the pandemic has changed the way we work. And the truth is, organisations are still figuring things out. Internal structures are changing, expectations for where employees work have evolved and technology requirements are still a work in progress.

One of the biggest changes to the workplace over the past two years has been within IT departments. The digital transformation organisations had been working towards rapidly became major priorities, to enable businesses to continue while working remotely. Digital readiness was no longer a nice-to-have, it became the connective tissue for employees to connect across the world. Let’s look at how that has changed the role IT once traditionally played within an organisation.

Understanding today’s expectations of IT

While IT has always been a key player, its role has transformed from a problem-fixer to an architect of the workplace. We no longer rely on brick-and-mortar offices to develop our workplace culture. Today our offices live in hardware and software. Our water coolers have become messaging channels and our conference rooms have become video calls. It’s not just our productivity that is dependent on our technology, but our company culture. The digital day-to-day run of show for organisations everywhere is made possible by IT, the producers.

But to pull this off there needs to be a cognitive shift from the traditional roles and responsibilities of IT. In fact, in a recent study 94 per cent of IT professionals agreed that the roles and responsibilities of their job has moved away from simply provisioning IT equipment. These are now focused more on providing solutions which promote employee collaboration and productivity since the shift to remote and hybrid working during the pandemic.

IT’s ownership of new tasks, such as developing working-from-home practices and training, supporting employee communication platforms and developing sustainability projects and polices, have been seen by 99 per cent of respondents in this same study. Many of these tasks are essential to day-to-day business operations. In fact, most workers (58 per cent) believe HR and IT are responsible for the workplace in equal measures. This means IT is a critical component to employee experience, having an impact on overall retention rates.

IT and the Great Resignation

A record 4.5 million workers switched jobs at the end of 2021. This staggering change happened for a number of reasons, but according to one recent report, HR and IT leaders ranked poor tech service as the third most influential factor for employee turnover and burnout. That is how much of an impact IT has on organisations today.