New Research Confirms the Modern Employee Experience Needs Improvement

The past few years have brought about significant technological change for organizations – and most of it has gone a long way towards improving the employee experience.

• The advent of new communication and workstream collaboration platforms means employees are more connected than ever before.

• An increased use of mobile solutions has enabled employees to be more flexible in where and when they work.

• The ongoing digitization of processes means employees are more empowered than ever with the tools they need to do their jobs.

But these advancements have come with a downside too. As a result of all the technology changes that have taken place in recent years, employees are…

• Overwhelmed with communication from a combination of old and new channels

• Bogged down by digital friction that makes it impossible to get work done

• Frustrated by complex digital processes that make things more time consuming than they have to be

…all of which has left them feeling stressed, unproductive and disengaged.

The average company maintains 651 SaaS applications — and, on average, adds ten new applications to the stack every month. (Source)

We explored these challenges in our recent study, "The State of Modern Employee Experience," conducted in partnership with Simpler Media Group.

In this study we surveyed more than 400 mid-level employees to find out how they communicate and perform their work in today's environment and how they feel about the applications and tools they use.

Some of the results were a confirmation of what we already suspected:

• Managers and employees are using more tools and applications than ever before.

• 73% of respondents say technology impedes their productivity.

• Email is one of the primary productivity blockers, particularly because it’s rife with information that’s not relevant or important.
  

It also didn’t come as a surprise that there’s a high degree of tolerance for this type of dysfunction. Employees expect technology to be challenging and simply accept it as a normal part of work, either battling through the annoyance of it or finding creative workarounds.

What was interesting, however, was that managers and employer’s still support technological advancement and appreciate their organization’s efforts to introduce new technologies.

That’s encouraging when you consider the ongoing challenges that technology is causing the modern worker (not the least of which is the nearly ubiquitous threat of digital friction).

• The average employee toggles between windows and apps more than 3,600 times a day

• 44% of respondents said the collaboration tools given to them by their organization frustrate them, while another 41% said they’re difficult to use.

• 60% of managers at mid-sized companies said they experience digital friction constantly

Employees are showing incredible resilience in the face of all the changes they’ve dealt with in recent years. But now is the time for organizations to reevaluate their digital practices and look for opportunities to improve the employee experience, not just for the success of their business, but for the long-term success of their workforce.

To learn more about the state of the employee experience, check out the full report.