What is Digital Employee Experience (DEX)?
Digital employee experience (DEX) is a term you’re likely starting to hear more frequently. As more companies go through digital transformation to embrace the “future of work” we have gone through a digital revolution. Companies now have more tools and technology than ever. But all that technology adds up to a digital experience, which can be positive or negative.
What is the Digital Employee Experience (DEX)?
Employee experience, put simply, is what it’s like to work for your company. Digital employee experience is what it is like to use the digital platforms at a company.
With the surplus of technology and digital solutions that exist, there is a compounding effect when it comes to DEX. Too few digital tools and employees might have a poor DEX. But the same is true if you have too many digital tools—or the wrong ones. Finding the right balance of solutions for your workforce is therefore imperative to creating a positive digital workplace.
Why is DEX Important?
How we meet and work is becoming more and more digital. And this trend is only going to continue. This makes our digital workspaces a particularly important area of focus.
Digital employee experience encompasses so much of our employees day-to-day:
- Communication. Even deskless employees who spend most of their day interacting face-to-face have many digital touch points for communication. Messages from their employer are often shared through digital channels like employee apps, intranets, email, texting, and digital signage.
- Learning. Most employee development and training programs are digital now. This makes our learning management systems (LMS) a critical component of DEX.
- Collaboration. Collaboration tools (like Slack) have become a new digital staple of the workplace. While these solutions aren’t as commonly used for the deskless workforce, they still make up a large percentage of how employees get work done.
And then even after work our lives are inundated with digital experiences. We unwind with television and social media. Or may be we need to log into an HRIS to check our paycheck or benefits or to easily be able to reach our manager to call out sick or to swap shifts.
When employers consider every digital touchpoint, they create better experiences for their employees. And when an employee can easily and readily access what they need when they need it, they are more likely to feel like they are in a supportive, healthy work environment.
What Are the Main Barriers to a Good Digital Experience?
The first main barrier is that businesses are not thinking about their digital employee experience. And if they are, they might not be considering the experience for frontline workers because those employees have a very different DEX than corporate staff. By starting to focus on DEX, you will be able to improve it.
Another barrier is a lack of information. Companies do not have sufficient personas and empathy maps drawn up for all their employee segments. Because the employee experience can be complex and different for every group, this makes it challenging for companies to create a positive digital experience.
Companies can also struggle with getting accessibility right. Are your digital tools set up to be accessible to everyone? Have you provided adequate training to employees who may be less technically savvy? Or are you just rolling out software without ensuring it can be learned and integrated into daily life in your company?
How Can You Improve DEX?
You cannot improve what you don’t measure. So, the first step is to start measuring employee experience, including the digital employee experience. The best ways to do this are to collect employee feedback through surveys and employee focus groups.
Next, you need to audit your digital tools and channels.
- How are you communicating?
- How many passwords do employees have to remember?
- What systems does an employee need to use every day?
- How many of those systems could be integrated to reduce complexity?
Ask yourself these types of questions and create a map of all the digital touch points at your company. From there, determine if any of those systems are not providing real value to your teams. And use your focus groups and surveys to understand if you even have the right tech stack to begin with.
Then you can start monitoring your progress. Continue to ask employees about their experience and hone it to solve their pain points and challenges.
Why theEMPLOYEEapp Helps Your Digital Employee Experience
theEMPLOYEEapp was designed knowing the challenges companies face with technology overload. Specifically, we are familiar with how deskless employees are impacted by employee experiences that aren’t ideal.
- Frontline workers tend to not have enough communication channels, but they also have so many operational systems, it’s hard to remember all their passwords. theEMPLOYEEapp integrates with human resources information systems (HRIS), surveys, and more to consolidate systems. This makes our internal communication app and employee intranet a central hub for the deskless workforce.
- Remote employees have access to computers and internet for their work, but they have physical barriers. These employees need solutions that help them stay connected with hybrid workers and office staff so they don’t miss a beat while collaborating. This makes our intranet a helpful tool to gather everyone in one hub for resource sharing and updates.
- Hybrid workers need similar tools to remote workers because of the nature of their work. These employees can also benefit from tools like microlearning that will help them with professional development and adjusting to new ways of working.