Let’s discuss digital employee experience.
At first, it may sound like one of those impractical concepts that consultants love to use, but when you get the idea, you will realize that it is actually a guiding North Star for hands-on, practical work. It’s an approach rather than a project.
For us at Applixure, the digital employee experience and its improvement is the guiding North Star of the product itself. More about at the end. So, let’s get down to business...
What is digital employee experience?
Digital Employee eXperience, DEX in brief, means how well the equipment that employees use, computers and software in particular, serves them and how satisfied they are with them in their daily work.
Measuring the digital employee experience means the continuous monitoring of the performance of hardware and software with the help of data (known as DEM = Digital Experience Monitoring). The purpose of measuring is to improve the digital employee experience, and that is the subject of this blog.
How to easily improve the performance of employees’ computers, and employee satisfaction
Usually, IT forms a picture of the functionality of computers through support requests. Regrettably, the resulting erroneous situational picture easily leads to misallocation of IT resources.
As a rule, problems that prevent use are reported to support, and in a well-managed IT environment, they are usually prevented from having a broad impact. This means that support requests and remedial measures are related to individual users.
The highest impact on functionality and satisfaction, i.e. the digital employee experience, can be achieved by focusing on the problems that bother many employees. Such problems slow down the work and are frustrating, but do not prevent use. So, they are not usually reported to IT support, because the hassle of contacting outweighs the inconvenience experienced by the individual concerned.
If logging in to the computer takes a long time, people can’t be bothered to complain, even though dozens or hundreds suffer from this 220 days a year. However, the combined impact of these problems that are common, but only distracting, is huge in terms of both satisfaction and productivity.
What you don't know you don't know. And when you don’t know, you can’t fix.
The first step ahead is to gain an up-to-date understanding of what it is happening, how the computers and software work, and how they are used.
In many cases, the difference between an imagined and the actual situation is considerable. What IT knows and thinks, or what the registers show, is not up to date:
- There is software in place that should not be there.
- The operating system versions are not the ones that you think they are. Instead, the situation is more crazy. And so on.
An up-to-date inventory is an important step as such, but it is only one step.
It is important to gain information on how software is used, as the fact that the software is installed does not reveal whether it is really needed. Unnecessary ones can be removed, and this often results in savings on expensive licensing costs (or helps to avoid fines).
It is also important to gain information about how hardware, operating systems and software actually work, or rather, do not work.
Which ones tend to crash or slow down, and what is the situation with the computer itself? Is the memory low, hard disk full, or the processor screaming at the extremes of performance?
When information is gathered from all computers, in one place in an easy-to-use and easy-to-understand format, you will be able to detect, at a glance, where there is place for improvement.
After all, there is infinite place for improvement if there is no prioritization, but when you look at a properly organized list, you can focus exactly on the problems that have a wide impact but are generally under the IT’s radar.
In most cases, these problems are simple to solve. But now, fixing one problem will influence the fluency of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of employees’ working day. At the same time, the underlying causes of regular support requests may be corrected.
Data-driven operations make IT work instantly more proactive, instead of IT just putting out fires.
Employees get more done when the computers and software run more smoothly. Costs are saved when you don't have to replace hardware prematurely, or pay for unused software.
Data security is a key element in the employee experience
Security is one of our basic needs, and the same applies to employees and computers. They must be able to focus on productive work and be confident that there are no holes in the data security in the computer.
In most cases, the reality of installed security updates is far from what you imagine. The fact that an update has been distributed, and should have been installed, does not always mean this has actually happened.
And the fact that IT thinks that a particular software or version should no longer be allowed does not mean that would not be in use still, even widely.
When anomalies are found (without searching) thanks to up-to-date data, they can be addressed in a timely manner. Unnecessary software can be removed and the area vulnerable to attacks reduced. Versions can be harmonized when you know who is actually using what.
Applixure takes digital employee experience improvement and IT efficiency to the next level
Applixure, the cloud-based software developed to measure and improve the digital employee experience, is already used by more than 700 companies and organizations that care about their employee experience.
Applixure provides you with up-to-date information about the computers you have in, what is installed to those, how well they are utilized and how well they are functioning. And you get all of this in a quick and easy to understand format, completely prioritized, whenever and as soon as you need to know something.
Applixure takes IT efficiency and employee experience improvement to the next level. And best of all, no projects are needed for this, as results can be achieved quickly almost on a turnkey basis.
Any further explanation would make the matter sound difficult. This is something you need to see and experience for yourself!
If you’re already one of more than 1000 Applixure customers, take a look to see if there’s anything else you could do to improve your employee experience.
To me, the digital employee experience and measuring and improving it seem like a very natural way of thinking. This is the guiding North Star that I have sought to support my thinking. The dozens of customers and partners I have enthused to about the subject say the same.
So, it is a question of no one determining indicator, but rather an ongoing goal to improve the digital experience and productivity of the entire staff.
Inspired by this, we are turning Applixure into Digital Employee Experience Improvement company, and in everyday language, we often use the acronym DEXI. So don't be surprised if I start talking more and more about DEXI.
