While nearly every business has embraced digital technology, many struggle to implement it in a way that truly enhances their employees’ daily work experience. Organizations invest in cutting-edge tools and platforms but often miss one essential element that determines their success: the digital employee experience (DEX).
What Is Digital Employee Experience (DEX)?
Employee experience encompasses everything that shapes how people feel about their workplace—from company culture and physical environment to leadership style and growth opportunities. Its impact on business success is substantial: Harvard Business Review research shows that organizations prioritizing employee experience see 50% higher revenue growth and profit compared to those that don’t.
In today’s workplace, digital technology has become so integral to how employees perform their jobs that it has given rise to its own category: the digital employee experience (DEX). DEX refers to how employees interact with and feel about the technology they use for work—whether they’re accessing HR systems, collaborating with colleagues, or serving customers.
A strong DEX is built on four key pillars:
- Devices: The hardware employees use daily, including computers, mobile devices, and peripherals.
- Applications: The software and platforms that power daily work, from communication tools and productivity suites to specialized business applications.
- Network infrastructure: The foundation that connects everything together, including internet connectivity, VPN access, and cloud services.
- IT support: The human element that keeps everything running smoothly.
When these components work together seamlessly, employees can focus on their actual work instead of wrestling with technology. However, when any element falls short, it can lead to frustration, lost productivity, and, ultimately, diminished engagement.
It’s no surprise that increasingly many organizations recognize DEX as a vital factor in their overall employee experience strategy. According to Gartner’s Market Guide for Digital Employee Experience (DEX) Tools, 50% of IT organizations will have established a DEX strategy by 2025, up from just 15 percent in 2022.
The Business Impact of Excellent DEX
When employees have reliable devices, intuitive applications, fast networks, and responsive IT support, they spend less time troubleshooting technology issues and more time on value-creating work. In fact, research shows that in digitally advanced companies, 73% of employees report increased productivity, with 70% experiencing improved collaboration.
Strong DEX is also beneficial for attracting and retaining top talent in today’s competitive job market, an issue that concerns almost 90% of organizations. Modern employees, particularly younger generations, expect seamless digital experiences at work that match what they’re used to in their personal lives. That’s why companies known for excellent digital workplaces have a significant advantage in recruitment and see lower turnover rates.
Remote and hybrid work success depends heavily on the quality of your DEX. With more employees working from various locations, the digital experience has become the primary workplace experience for many. Organizations with superior DEX can maintain high engagement and collaboration levels regardless of where their employees work. This flexibility not only improves work-life balance but also expands your talent pool beyond geographical boundaries.
Another area that improves naturally with better DEX is security compliance. When digital tools are easy to use and well-integrated, employees are less likely to seek unauthorized workarounds or “shadow IT” solutions that could compromise the security of the entire organization and lead to a costly data breach or some other cybersecurity incident.
For these reasons, a comprehensive DEX strategy almost always leads to significant cost savings in the long run, making the initial investment well worth it.
Practical Steps to Improve Your Digital Employee Experience
Building a better digital employee experience doesn’t happen overnight, but there are proven steps you can take to get there. Let’s look at what matters most.
Start by Understanding Employee Needs
First, listen to your people. Every organization is unique, and what works for others might not work for you. Before investing in new technology or performing legacy IT modernization, understand your employees’ actual needs and pain points. What frustrates them most about their current digital tools? Which processes feel unnecessarily complex? Often, the most impactful improvements come from addressing these day-to-day friction points.
Choose an Integrated Technology Stack
Technology selection comes next. Focus on creating a cohesive digital environment where everything works together smoothly. Your applications should integrate well with each other, your network should be robust enough to support your needs, and your layered security measures should protect without getting in the way.
This integration is much easier to achieve when you stay within a unified ecosystem. For example, organizations that use Microsoft solutions benefit from seamless integration across their digital workplace. Microsoft 365 apps like Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Office 365 interoperate smoothly with one another and the Windows operating system, and they benefit from the comprehensive cybersecurity protection offered by Microsoft Defender and the robust data governance and management capabilities of Microsoft Purview.
Support Adoption Through Training
However, even the most intuitive and well-integrated tools need proper introduction and support. As such, it’s always necessary to develop a clear training approach that helps employees understand how to use the new tools, and how they make their work better.
Remember that improving your digital employee experience is a journey, not a race. Start with changes that will have the biggest impact on your employees’ daily work, measure the results, and adjust your approach based on feedback. Trying to transform everything at once can overwhelm both your team and your resources.
Conclusion
A positive digital employee experience (DEX) is not just a nice-to-have; it’s a strategic imperative. An effective DEX strategy can lead to higher productivity, better talent retention, enhanced security, and a healthier bottom line.
If you’re ready to transform your organization’s digital employee experience, consider partnering with experts who understand the nuances of digital workplaces—schedule a consultation with OSIbeyond.