It’s fair to say that work has undergone massive disruption over the past few years. It’s not only the location employees are working from that have changed, the very fabric of work itself is evolving and becoming more fragmented. Technology ecosystems are more complex, processes and working practices are often siloed, and teams are more geographically dispersed than ever before. But beyond this sea of change and disruption lies a huge opportunity for organizations to transform in delivering better business outcomes and employee experiences.
Employee experience has become an even greater business priority
Fundamentally, it is people that make a business work, so ensuring their workplace experience is positive is so important. As we think about this, it is important to remember that people need the right environment, tools, and support structures to help them do their best work. However, all these areas have been disrupted over the past few years. These disruptions have seen business leaders prioritize initiatives that help them understand what employee experience looks like and how it can be positively influenced. The need to make long-term changes in understanding employee experience is important as diverse work styles and practices are here to stay. For example, Omdia’s 2022 Future of Work survey showed that Just under half the workforce will work in a hybrid or fully mobile fashion going forward. These trends and priorities have resulted in organizations placing a lot of emphasis on employee experience. Getting it right can be huge asset that positively impacts business operations, revenue, and internal and external perception of your company.
Technology experience, employee sentiment, and the physical workplace are all important elements to consider.
Employee experience can be a difficult thing to understand as it is often impacted by such a large variety of different technology, people-centric, and even physical workplace factors. Solutions like digital employee experience (DEX) are helping businesses better understand the technology experience, but this is only one piece of the puzzle. In our 2022 Omdia Future of Work study, we explored some of the people-centric elements impacting employee experience, particularly relating to the challenges that had been experienced with the increase in hybrid and flexible working. We found that employees feeling like they are missing out on learning opportunities, lack of visibility and understanding into how others are working, loneliness, and proximity biases were all areas causing concern with hybrid working. These areas are difficult to quantify and measure, but they are important pieces of the overall employee experience puzzle. In building a better picture of what employee experience looks like, businesses must consider the outputs and tasks people achieve, the technology experience, and the human and emotional experience involved in delivering any outputs. Communication and trust between employees and business leaders is also key, as is integration between business functions like HR and IT.
