The digital workplace is now a strategic enabler of productivity and innovation. However, many businesses still don’t have adequate digital workplace strategies or solutions in place to empower workers.
And it isn’t down to a lack of willingness: a Gartner survey of CIOs and technology executives revealed that 24% of companies plan to increase funding for their digital workplaces. But employees still find digital workplaces lacking: 47% of digital workers say they struggle to find information or data needed to perform their jobs effectively, and 66% of workers say better business outcomes could be achieved if IT provided correct applications and devices to get work done.
This comes at a time when digital tools are increasingly important to employee experience (EX) and job satisfaction. The Gartner survey found that digital workers who are satisfied with the tools and applications their company gives them are 1.6 times more likely to want to stay and grow in their current roles and organizations.
A complex landscape that needs clarity
The latest Gartner DEX Blueprint to Mature Your Digital Workplace Strategy report reveals that employers are trying to improve EX and their digital workplaces but are struggling in some key areas. For example, most digital workplace strategies tend to be technology-driven and vendor-influenced, which leads to poor alignment with the specific needs of individual organizations and different employee personas. Furthermore, digital workplace executives and leaders continue to lack a cohesive and comprehensive way to describe, promote and advance digital workplace strategies to improve EX. There’s also an issue of most digital workplace teams being ill-equipped to support and scale the increasing number of business technologist and fusion team activities.
What organizations can do
According to the Gartner DEX Blueprint to Mature Your Digital Workplace Strategy report, one key step enterprises can take is investing in DEX. This is critical to delivering beyond IT-focused outcomes and achieving organization-wide experience outcomes.
Another important step towards a mature digital workplace strategy is leadership and responsibility. It isn’t always clear who in an organization is ultimately responsible for delivering great DEX. The Gartner survey found that digital workers consider the CIO to have the third-highest positive influence on overall EX, behind the CEO and COO. So digital workplace leaders need to work with CIOs to drive enhanced EX through digital workplace maturity. To do this, enterprises need to increase collaboration with shared services and line-of-business leaders to ensure DEX is seen as a critical strategic initiative in the company.
A key recommendation from the Gartner report is that organizations should focus on human-centric design based on employee personas and critical user journeys. Furthermore, digital workplace should communicate a shared vision using Gartner’s DEX blueprint to guide and coordinate IT and business expectations for digital workplace technologies, practices and strategy. These approaches, married to other Gartner recommendations, can enable digital workplace teams that blend business and technology roles to be 50% more likely to deliver positive outcomes than those formed by IT alone by 2027.
Download the Gartner DEX Blueprint to Mature Your Digital Workplace Strategy report and read more about DEX and how to formulate a strategy that delivers benefits to your business.
I’ve been writing about technology for around 15 years and today focus mainly on all things telecoms - next generation networks, mobile, cloud computing and plenty more. For Futurity Media I am based in the Asia-Pacific region and keep a close eye on all things tech happening in that exciting part of the world.