In this context, DEX, is defined as the experience employees have with their digital tools and infrastructure. It includes everything from top-of-mind awareness, to how they can use those tools to do their jobs better.
When we say DEX, we mean the way employees interact with their organization through technology. It includes everything from corporate websites and social media pages, to apps on smartphones, tablets and laptops. It also includes things like work calendars, digital shift scheduling, booking time off, learning & development or employee handbooks. It’s about increasing the digital ways that employees interact with the business, their managers, and co-workers and in many cases their customers when at their desks, on the shop floor, at home and sadly, sometimes, even on holidays. In business, today, DEX is part of every employees journey.
In the context of talent attraction, DEX even extends to people who don’t work for your company, yet! The recruitment process is an amazing and often overlooked place to start your thinking about the role of DEX in you organisation. After all, it may be the first and only time you get chance to make the right first impression. But, even if your talent attraction team provide the most amazing digital experience to attract talent in the front door, if your onboarding experience is lack lustre, frustrating, lengthy and downright poor, don’t be surprised if the talent keeps on walking out!
Why is having an amazing DEX so critical to my business?
Employee experience has a direct correlation to employee engagement, which is the single most important factor in employee retention, productivity and customer satisfaction. The State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report (Gallup) show us that business units with engaged workers have 23% higher profits compared to business units with unhappy employees. With more than 80% of employees either not engaged or actively disengaged the opportunity to improve our employees experiences is a critical one.
Digital employee experiences (DEX) are the most effective way to retain talent through better communication and collaboration tools. They also help employees develop professional skills that allow them to work more efficiently, while developing strong relationships with customers or clients (Deloitte).
In addition to helping you retain top talent by providing an attractive environment where they feel valued, DEX solutions can also help drive innovation across your organization, as they allow people from different departments or functions access to all the information necessary for success.
Ok, so who owns DEX?
The ownership of DEX is very important, but it depends on your organization. For example, if you’re a small organization with only one department and minimal employee experience requirements, you may have one person take ownership as part of their broader role. However, if you have hundreds of employees at multiple locations, across many departments, with complex workflows and processes—and if these processes involve lots of collaboration between different departments—then ownership may be more complicated than just “one person.”
There are some key departments that should be liaising closely to ensure you deliver the best DEX you can. These include HR (talent attraction & retainment) and IT (operations, architecture & security) but should also involve key stakeholders from each line of business to ensure your DEX is as flexible, agile, and personal as the diverse wealth of talent you have and hope to employ.
So where does VMware come in?
Many companies pertain to have solutions that improve DEX, but do they? There are a number of companies that use the term “DEX” but are ultimately only looking at a subset of employees or indeed their digital experiences.
Other companies approach DEX from another angle and do actually aim to target the full range of employees through surveys and analytics that ask the employees to share their views, opinions and challenges. However, these solutions also have challenges with their approach and ultimately, who they provide value to. For example, a survey may be open to all employees, but if your way of knowing about a survey is email and 80% of the employees don’t have corporate email then the feedback is already limited.
Additionally, if the frequency, length and format of surveys is not deemed as relevant, inclusive or worthwhile, because the employees feel disengaged, the key value of getting feedback is eroded.
The approach at VMware is to mix some of these methods , but also extend their reach and capability. We do this through metrics captured across the widest range of device and application types, operating systems and ownership models and linking that with things like contextual surveys to capture sentiment more widely. In addition, we allow our customers to utilise workflows and automation to further enhance an employees digital experience. We believe in building platforms, not just products. Our DEX platform allows our customers and partners to further extend our capabilities with DEX across the entire employee journey and drastically improve employee lifetime value.
If your interested in finding our more please reach out to our VMware Experience Solutions team at [email protected] or for more information visit What is Digital Employee Experience? | VMware
