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Although the world of work is changing, one thing has always remained constant: successful businesses have productive employees at their core.
With work moving increasingly to digital platforms, it makes sense that the employee experience would migrate there too. This is the key concept behind digital employee experience (DEX).
However, this is also an opportunity to build a smarter, more efficient way of working, as many are discovering through the power of automation.
In today’s post, we’ll be defining what DEX is, the benefits of using it for your business, and giving you some tips to make sure you’re getting the most out of it.
What is DEX Monitoring?
Digital employee experience, or DEX, looks at the ways employees interact with their company’s digital environment. This can include the hardware and software for everyday tasks, or the support they receive when it goes wrong. Metrics like application performance, device health, and connectivity, measure digital employee experience.
Why is DEX Monitoring Important?
Though DEX monitoring is a relatively new concept, its importance can’t be overstated. Consider 3 benefits below:
1. Employee retention
Poor digital employee experience can lose you your best employees. A survey found that 36 percent of employees have considered quitting their jobs due to a poor DEX. It’s a gap businesses need to plug as a matter of urgency, lest they fall victim to the competitive UK jobs market (especially within IT).
2. Improved productivity
An improved DEX – with software that works as fast remotely as it does in an office – is also great productivity. Not only does it decrease the number of tickets logged by your IT team, but it also frees up time for non-IT employees. For example, a Gallup survey found that companies with engaged employees outperformed their competitors by 147%. This is echoed by leadership-level executives. 97% of them say that high-quality DEX positively impacts employee productivity.
3. Improved security
With a robust DEX system, companies can detect potential breaches or misconfigurations much earlier. Whether it automates patch management or checks the status of anti-malware updates, it saves you and your IT team from future headaches.
As well as this, DEX can also enhance the security systems you already have. A frictionless system doesn’t only mean fewer frustrated employees, but also stops them finding insecure workarounds – which nearly 2 in 3 employees have admitted to doing at work.
Tips for Successfully Implementing DEX Monitoring
Of course, bringing in DEX monitoring isn’t the end of the story. For your company to get the most out of it, DEX needs to be managed well. Here are some ways you can ensure that happens:
Treat DEX it as a product
This sounds more complex than it is. Essentially, it means you should give DEX the same amount of attention that you would to a newly introduced product (or service) at your company.
Treating DEX as a product – and your employees as customers – also means you’re more likely to focus on their experience. The more you think about how your DEX systems will help your employees, the more likely it is to work effectively for that purpose.
It also means you’ll see DEX as an ongoing commitment rather than a one-off project – and be more able to change it based on user feedback.
Don’t just rely on support tickets
Many DEX strategies fail because they put too much emphasis on closed support tickets as a metric. DEX and support are linked, but only looking at the number of support tickets narrows your view of how you’re doing. The same goes for other “outputs”, like the number of devices connected. These metrics may look impressive, but the focus should be on outcomes. These – like levels of employee satisfaction – can be translated directly into business value.
Form a DEX team
Silos are the enemy of many a great business process, and DEX is no exception. You don’t need to hire a specific person to handle DEX (though it’s an option if you have the scope). The key is getting everyone on board – by creating a team focused on DEX, drawing on leaders from across the organisation.
This links back to the “product mindset” point made earlier. The wider the range of people working on your DEX strategy, the more likely it is that it will be accepted by different areas of the company. This makes your DEX strategy more effective as it will get data from more people – leading to a virtuous cycle.
What to Look For In A DEX Monitoring Platform
A DEX monitoring platform should help you keep track of each aspect of your employees’ digital experience. Here are 3 key features to look for:
1. Holistic and granular visibility
A great DEX monitoring platform should let you dig down into each point of data, from client-side apps to external networks. It should be equipped with these abilities out of the box, as well as strong integration with VDI solutions.
2. Quantitative and qualitative insights
Your DEX monitoring solution should provide both of these. Together, they help IT managers score DEX, benchmark that score against internal goals, and show its value to the wider business.
3. Security and compliance
DEX is all about reducing user friction, and its security features should do that too – whether through single sign-on (SSO) and zero trust authentication (ZTA), or something else. A DEX solution should also monitor each of the devices it’s connected to, in real time, so that issues can be identified as soon as they appear.
No matter how the world of work continues to change, making sure your employees are engaged will always be the top priority. Digital employee experience platforms allow you to keep to that commitment even as software changes – ensuring employees stay with your company longer, and are safe and productive while they’re there.
Automation Elevates Your DEX
The ultimate goal of DEX monitoring for most IT leaders is to create a frictionless environment for their users. We’ve found that, often, a significant source of that friction is the “daily grind” of manual, repetitive tasks.
This is where automation plays a transformative role. By reducing human error, enforcing consistent policies, and freeing up your IT team from mundane tasks, a investing in automation can accelerate the improvements you want to make.
To find out how to use automation to dramatically improve your digital employee experience, join us for our free webinar:
The Automation Platform Shift
- Date & Time: Wednesday 17th September, 11am
- Guest Speakers:
- Kenny Lowe – Cloud Platforms Evangelism and Enablement Lead, Dell Technologies
- Rick McEvoy – Technical Practice Manager, TD SYNNEX
Don’t just see your DEX issues – get them fixed with Axess Systems’ proactive DEX Monitoring Service.
Visit our page to find out more, or, book a free consultation to find out how else we can help you.
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