Bridging the digital experience divide

Ayelet Elstein at Lakeside Software explains that employee experience is pivotal to addressing the challenge posed by the UK’s tech talent shortage

The UK is home to a booming tech scene producing over 400 high growth startups since 2000, raising a record $39.8bn in 2021 and a further $19.8bn in 2022 despite the economic downturn.

Its expansive technology ecosystem, combining innovation with standards and values, and including a regulatory approach to AI, has positioned London as Europe’s tech capital.

This impressive growth has a downside nonetheless: a shortage in tech talent and an imminent need to increase employee productivity. This calls for immediate action to keep up with the sector’s accelerating growth and to sustain its impact on stimulating the economy in times of a potential recession.

Across industries, companies are approaching productivity differently. After piloting a four-day work week as part of a research program, many UK companies are sticking with the strategy after observing benefits to employee health and improved productivity. One of the companies in the pilot program invested in technology to manage daily tasks for the four-day work week to succeed.

Tech companies are leveraging digital technology to increase productivity, but require further improvement. There is a clear call for greater productivity and output across all sectors. But this movement should be spearheaded by the tech sector because the industry as a whole shows room for rapid growth as well as increased pressure to improve overall output.

While the tech talent pool is set to grow considerably in the coming years, companies face a pressing challenge: what to do about the shortage now.

Staffing, however, is only one aspect of a broader challenge. Other factors come into play and make tech companies unfruitful or strapped to deliver on-demand. Downtime, understaffed teams, delayed work, and low output can translate into loss of revenue, high customer churn and reputational damage.

In a survey of IT executives, leaders, and employees, it was reported that workers operate at only 60% of their total potential productivity. Employees’ productivity is hindered by IT systems failing to run effectively or meet employee needs.

Leaders recognise the need for improved productivity through the use of digital technology yet there is a major disconnect between how employees experience their companies’ tech stacks and how leaders think the employees experience them. The right technology with the relevant data and insights can easily bridge this divide.

However, companies are yet to fully grasp the importance of digital employee experience (DEX) or its impact on productivity as a whole. Only 20% of leaders see a need for improvement in this area. Unsurprisingly, only a little more than half (57%) of companies are in the onset of measuring DEX - an enabler for productivity.

Increasing productivity through digital experience management

A digital experience management strategy must begin with a clear understanding of IT’s role in everyday work. With more companies depending on remote or hybrid workforces, IT must be proactive and not reactive. IT issues are often under-reported, and the department cannot respond to issues on an on-demand basis.

Instead, IT needs a high-level view of the organisation’s overall digital experience and how digital tools affect employees each day. This is the opposite of a “management by exception” process, which yields only a limited view of the IT estate. Companies want to measure their overall IT health, score it, and tie the metrics to employee productivity data and in addition, correlate it to customer satisfaction.

Automation is an intrinsic part of the employee experience strategy and improvement of productivity. Manual IT processes are augmented and replaced by automation in the zero-touch evolution. AI and data analytics free up valuable talent resources to focus on more pressing and strategic tasks whilst simultaneously providing stakeholders with essential data regarding digital performance.

It is exciting to see companies move toward this degree of automation in creative ways. ChatGPT is an excellent example. Leaders in countless sectors have investigated this revolutionary AI tool for ways to improve processes, replace menial tasks, and increase output. Yet it has been made clear that AI is not ready to replace sophisticated human insights or interpretations.

Between the IT department and company stakeholders, a clear set of experience-level agreements (XLAs) must be set to determine gaps in DEX. This is part of the proactive standpoint. These gaps must be detected, issues prevented early and employee feedback collected.

Ensuring a seamless IT experience drives greater employee output validated by positive employee sentiment. Addressing the digital experience is the first step in bridging the gap between aspirational productivity goals and goals that are achievable, measurable, and impactful. Direct communication between company stakeholders and employees regarding the ins and outs of the digital experience is critical.

This shift towards digital experience management has been rolled out in the UK’s financial services sector and should expand more broadly to the tech sector to play a leading role in boosting productivity, reducing downtime, and leveraging automation to augment human talent.

As the technology industry grows, its demand for skilled talent grows in tandem. Proactive AI led technology which enhances the employee experience, boosts efficiency, and eliminates cumbersome IT experience, will reshape the way we work and set a benchmark for digital workplace standards.

Ayelet Elstein is SVP Global Strategy and EMEA Operations at Lakeside Software

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com