This article has been reviewed by Billy Stevens for accuracy.
Measuring and evaluating your digital employee experience (DEX) is essential for maintaining employee satisfaction and regular business practices. However, this is one aspect of running a business that can fall by the wayside. As long as productivity remains the same, nothing must be wrong, right?
Wrong. Businesses must look at other elements beyond productivity metrics to determine their true DEX and get to the root cause. They must speak with their employees to find out which technologies truly help and which do more harm than good. This can work to increase the employee experience and promote a positive work environment. Here, Sera highlights the DEX and how to implement a DEX strategy.
About Digital Employee Experience
Digital employee experience (DEX) is exactly as it sounds – it’s the experience of employees using your company’s digital technologies. It evaluates how satisfied team members are with a company’s programs, workspaces, devices, and apps. This can include:
- Databases for workflows
- Company-specific apps, like messaging
- Company-administered mobile devices
- Company-administered laptops, computers, monitors, etc.
- Help desks
- Productivity programs, like Microsoft
- Video conferencing software
- Dashboards
- Self-service technologies
DEX also measures the end-user experience employees have with software, like field service management (FSM) software. There are many use cases for this kind of software, including:
Evaluating these aspects in real time can allow companies to gain the full benefits of their field service management software and other technologies. However, DEX encompasses much more than just how employees use these technologies. It also involves how IT departments collaborate with workers to solve problems within a digital workplace.
The Importance of Considering DEX
Discover how an HVAC business ended its decade-long search for simplicity and doubled in size with Sera.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work and hybrid work settings have become popular in many workplaces. This makes it increasingly important to ensure technology is working at its best capacity. Even when employees are in-person, having reliable, easy-to-use technologies is essential to streamline work processes. It empowers employees to perform their jobs well and in a timely manner.
Software that often freezes or malfunctions can make an employee’s job even tougher than it already is. Not only can this affect business practices, but it also makes work less enjoyable for employees. This can lead to workers feeling stagnant with where they are in your company, causing them to turn elsewhere for employment. It can also slow down business processes.
By measuring your DEX, you can make employees feel heard and listened to in their work experience, increasing retention and employee engagement. It keeps companies well-informed of their technologies, processes, employee needs, and other aspects. It also holds businesses accountable, allowing them to see how employees experience their technologies and prioritize areas for improvement.
From there, companies can look at their DEX and strategize ways to improve it or affirm that their technologies are working up to standards. Promoting employee productivity through your technologies can also help optimize the customer experience.
How to Evaluate DEX
Many workplaces evaluate the following aspects of their workplace technology to determine an accurate DEX:
Collaborative Efforts
Collaboration is a huge part of any workplace. Technologies that negatively impact collaboration can disrupt business processes and affect efficiency. Businesses should ensure their technologies allow for easy, simple collaboration, improving the work experience and increasing their DEX.
Program and Device Performance
When companies work with certain programs and devices, they must ensure these elements are working quickly and as expected. This is especially true for those who rely on these programs and devices to complete the majority of their work.
Because employees use them frequently, programs and devices that consistently malfunction or stop working can severely disrupt business practices. It can also hurt the employee experience at your business. Evaluating DEX can pinpoint the areas in which you can improve and highlight processes that are working well, contributing to a great digital employee experience.
Location Flexibility
For field service workers, technologies must be mobile to accommodate any work environment. Businesses should consider location mobility and flexibility when evaluating digital tools for DEX. This is also essential for companies that use FSM software, which allows employees to update, contact, and collaborate with others while traveling to and from job sites. The features in FSM software must have location flexibility to deliver smooth-running business processes.
Program and Device Reliability
Aside from performance, the reliability of your business’s technologies is just as important, if not more. Databases and other programs that constantly crash can create challenges on any workday. In addition, slow-loading programs and devices can disrupt working practices. Businesses should also think about how well devices connect to company VPNs and other software.
Implementing Your DEX Strategy
The first step to evaluating DEX is to receive employee feedback. Take the time to talk with employees about their user experience with work-related digital technologies. Make a note of pain points that employees consistently run into and take notice of things that work well in your technology initiatives.
This type of feedback can also help businesses evaluate how their employees usually deal with technology. Are most of your employees tech-savvy? Or are they more challenged when it comes to figuring out technology? Knowing the answer to these questions and understanding employee personas can help you craft a better, more effective DEX strategy.
The next part of developing ways to improve the DEX involves finding consistent methods for rolling out new technology. Changes to how a business works can seriously impact business processes, including getting new technology. For example, integrating FSM software into your current software strategy. Businesses can enhance employee satisfaction when employees have reliable, consistent assistance and someone to turn to when issues arise.
When crafting a DEX strategy, it can also be beneficial for companies to consider their experience metrics versus operational metrics. Operational metrics are a tool that businesses use to ensure jobs are being completed.
While using these metrics can reveal a lot about the productivity of a business, it doesn’t say much about your employees’ direct experience with your technology. Instead, you’ll want to base your evaluation on experience metrics. Experience metrics measure how much employees feel supported by their company’s services.
Find Software Solutions with Sera
Sera offers field management software solutions for trade businesses looking to improve the way they run. Using our four pillars to guide small to medium-sized companies on their path to success, we ensure they have the tools they need to win more business, keep employees happy, and boost profits,
To learn more about digital employee experience or digital employee experience management, contact us today to schedule your 15-minute discovery call.