Digital Employee Experience: Five Essential Factors for Decision Making

For the first time, Gartner has released a Magic Quadrant for Digital Employee Experience Management Tools, showcasing that now, more than ever, organizations must not only have a DEX tool to measure and improve employees’ digital experience, but have the right one to match their organizations particular needs.

We understand the power of DEX tooling, but creating a compelling case for a toolset which is often measured in potential hours or soft savings can be tricky. This is compounded by the difficulty in measuring post deployment ROI.

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"Through 2027, 75% of organizations without a DEX Strategy and tool will fail to successfully reduce digital friction"

^{Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Digital Employee Experience Management Tools, Dan Wilson, Tom Cipolla, Stuart Downes, Autumn Stanish, Lina Al Dana, 26 August 2024}

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Organizations without a mitigation strategy risk loss of productivity, disillusioned workers, and a general lack of confidence in IT.

So, what are the key factors organizations should investigate when selecting a DEX tool:

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Matching tooling to business goals

Improving user experience, for IT and end users

Measurable hard and soft ROI

Constant innovation

Flexibility for futureproofing
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Matching tooling to business goals

Employees, being the most important part of any business, are the largest expenditure for an organization. Couple this with a myriad of IT management tools and the complexity of modern business application estates, and you have a perfect storm for poor employee experience, putting at risk this large investment. Business goals for DEX tooling can be:

Employee productivity

Long term staff retention

Consolidation of complex tooling

Reduction in employee/IT friction

Finding the areas that matter most to your business will allow you to make a compelling case that aligns directly with organizational goals and values.

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Improving user experience, for IT and end-users

To make a DEX tool effective long-term, teams are required to embrace the automation and troubleshooting capabilities that the tool brings. Then, once deployed, the utilization must be measured to ensure maximum impact. Here’s how to do that:

Self-Healing measures success: Use the count of self-healed incidents as a KPI to gauge your DEX tool's effectiveness.

Automation can reduce first line fix rates: Automated routine fixes to lower support tickets and free up IT resources for complex issues.

Employee feedback as a baseline for improvement: Create an early baseline of employee satisfaction and benchmark improvements over time

Measure Hard and Soft ROI

Finding hard cost savings is essential. While improving the performance of an employee by five hours a week is great on paper, it does not directly correlate to active productivity.

Utilize simple metrics, measurable in currency for hard ROI, and align to core business metrics for soft ROI to provide impact. These metrics can be:

Software Asset Management Savings: Remove unused software across your user base to provide hard savings.

Device Lifecycle Extension: Optimize devices to extend their lifespan.

Support Wait Times: Time to respond and time to fix

Automation Savings: Utilization of automation

Constant innovation

Digital Employee Experience is a journey that requires constant, diligent focus. Use “Gartner’s Digital Workplace Assessment” to create a timeline of early adoption and aspirational goals. Both your team and the product you utilize should be on a path of consistent innovation, with focused measurable outcomes that are reviewed periodically.

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Gartner, Use Gartner’s DEX Blueprint to Mature Your Digital Workplace Strategy, Jason Wong, Matt Cain, Jim Murphy, Mike Gotta, Tim Nelms, Dan Wilson, 19 June 2023

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Flexibility for futureproofing

No two organizations are alike – your challenges are unique to your organization. Extensibility is key to success. Tools will take you 90% of the way, but customization will get you across the final hurdle. Ensure the DEX solution you choose is built with extensibility in mind in order to:

Adapt to new business challenges or changing employee needs with customizable reports, dashboards, and workflows.

Align digital management with broader strategic goals like staff retention and improved cybersecurity.

Ensure your company remains agile as it expands into new markets or adopts emerging technologies.

Transforming your Digital Employee Experience isn’t just about technology. It is a strategic focus to bring IT and Employees closer, reducing organization friction in a way that can redefine your business operations.

If you want to learn more about how we measure deployment success, click Enquire to speak to our team.

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* Gartner^®, Magic Quadrant^™ for Digital Employee Experience Management Tools, Dan Wilson, Tom Cipolla, Stuart Downes, Autumn Stanish, Lina Al Dana, 26 August 2024 **Gartner®, Magic Quadrant™ for Desktop as a Service, Stuart Downes, Eri Hariu, Mark Margevicius, Craig Fisler, Sunil Kumar, 16 September 2024
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