Lakeside Software, the leader in digital experience management (DEM), today released results from a new global market survey of 600 C-level executives, end-users, and IT staff investigating the progress companies are making to provide a good digital experience to their workforce. The survey also revealed the impact stemming from a lack of DEM solution adoption and its effect on mitigating core challenges related to new hybrid work practices as we exit the pandemic.
Key findings in the report, “The Future of Digital Workplaces,” establish a direct connection between organizational budget reductions, a decrease in organizational financial performance, and the lack of prioritization and investment in digital experience (DEX) technology solutions. Specifically, industries where staff rated their digital employee experience the highest had significantly fewer technology disruptions and 12% less unproductive time from tech disruptions compared to those industries where employees ranked their DEX lowest. CEOs projected a 12.1% revenue increase and 18.1% cost reduction with a significantly improved digital experience, which would unlock an astonishing, unrealized upside revenue potential of $4 trillion for the Global Fortune 500.
“The business leaders of today’s hybrid and remote workforces are finally recognizing the enormous financial impact digital employee experience has on an organization’s performance across the board, and not just on productivity and morale, but also the company’s bottom-line,” said Mike Schumacher, CEO, Lakeside Software. “These figures clearly indicate the true urgency in addressing the current divide between how DEX is perceived in the C-suite and how it is experienced at the employee level.”
Additionally, in industries where the highest percentage of employees rated the quality of their digital experiences as average to low, a strong connection exists between IT problems and overall productivity. For example, approximately 78% of healthcare workers rate their DEX quality as average to very low and as a result of this experience also reported the highest number of IT issues (4.0) per week out of all the surveyed industries.
In light of such a significant impact on business outcomes, the study also found other critical gaps between DEX perception versus its implementation across the business. Although 67% of IT staff agree that DEX is a critical priority for the IT organization, nearly half of CEOs and CHROs say their companies don’t measure the quality of digital employee experience. With only 17% of employees believing that senior executives give digital experiences high or very high priority, employees are taking note.
The study also assessed the impact of remote working on the digital workplace, both from the perspective of how it is impacting the business, as well as the challenges workers are facing themselves.
Top remote work challenges employees face:
– Distractions (approximately 50%)
– Less effective collaboration and teamwork (approximately 45%)
– Data and privacy issues (approximately 44%)
– Poor internet connection quality (approximately 32%)
Additionally, nearly 92% of employees admitted that technology issues that interrupt their work could be avoided or prevented through digital experience management solutions.
“With C-level respondents reporting that on average, 43% of their workforce will continue to work remotely or hybrid post-pandemic, this new normal – as well as its associated core challenges of collaboration, employee engagement, customer service, and product innovation – are here to stay,” said Bill Hobbib, chief marketing officer, Lakeside Software. “Thankfully, from monitoring and diagnosing device issues to predicting potential system failures or performance issues before they occur, the kind of benefits a proper DEM management solution can provide should help enterprises address a number of these known challenges.”
“Furthermore, DEX can be instrumental to manage digital risk,” said Angela Salmeron, associate research director, Future of Work, IDC. “Remote workers are struggling to adopt new technologies, impacting the success of transformation projects. A DEM solution can provide relevant insight on usage and sentiment, and proactively identify IT dexterity problems in the workforce.”
Lakeside Software commissioned ESI ThoughtLab to survey C-level executives, employees and IT staff. Each survey assessed each group’s views on digital employee experience, best practices and impact on production metrics. Detailed results of the market survey will be presented at Lakeside’s DEXterity 2021 Virtual Conference on May 26.
