Digital Experience Becomes Fundamental for Employee Engagement and Retention

Across all industries, HR and business leaders continue to develop new strategies to deliver better employee experiences which, in turn, can lead to improved workforce productivity and retention.

Whether or not you buy into concepts such as the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting, there is no denying employers have to work harder to meet the evolving needs of their employees and to avoid losing their best talent in a fiercely competitive, candidate-driven labor market.

In the current environment, an attractive salary and benefits package is no longer enough to stand out from the crowd - employees want flexibility in how and where they work; they want their employers to protect and promote every aspect of their mental, physical and financial wellbeing, and they want to see a clear path for skills development and career progression. And they know that if their current employer doesn’t satisfy these needs, they can probably find another one that will.

In response, organizations focus heavily on the employee experience, ensuring they can provide each employee with the working practices, benefits and culture they need to feel supported and included in the workforce.

But it’s also important HR and business leaders don’t overlook the increasingly important role of digital experience within the overall employee experience. With workers increasingly reliant on applications and digital services to perform their jobs, it’s now essential these services are performing at an optimal level at all times; otherwise, organizations risk employees becoming increasingly frustrated and disengaged and more likely to leave their job.

Digital experience is a critical element in talent retention

Research by Cisco AppDynamics highlights the importance workers now attach to digital experience. 66% of employees claim that if the applications and digital services they use in their job fail to perform, it leaves them feeling anxious and angry, and a staggering 52% claim it makes them more inclined to leave their job.

Such is their reliance on digital services to perform their jobs that employees are unforgiving when their technology fails. Most admit that employers can only impress them with an application or digital service. If an application doesn’t meet their expectations, they’ll be left feeling annoyed and de-motivated, which employers can't afford in the current climate.

Perhaps most worrying for employers is that more than half of employees have experienced at least one occasion over the past six months when they haven’t been able to do their job correctly because of poorly performing applications and IT in their company. If HR and business leaders want to avoid a talent exodus, they must address this issue urgently.

Observability is the foundation for seamless digital experiences and driving employee engagement

As we all know, expectations for seamless, intuitive, and personalized digital experiences have soared over the last few years. As consumers, we’re benefiting from the best, most innovative entertainment, news, banking and messaging applications. And we now see no reason we shouldn’t have the same level of experience at work, however unrealistic or unfair that might be on employers.

Therefore, organizations need to ensure the applications and digital services they provide employees can deliver seamless digital experiences at all times. But many IT teams are encountering massive issues in managing application availability and performance. The ongoing transition to multi-cloud and hybrid environments has left technologists facing overwhelming complexity and data noise across a highly dynamic and fragmented IT estate.

The major problem is that most IT departments lack unified visibility across hybrid environments. Therefore they can’t get a clear view of applications where components are running across on-premises and cloud-native environments. This makes it extremely tough to identify and troubleshoot issues before they impact employees (and customers).

Indeed, this lack of visibility and insight is undoubtedly a significant factor in why most employees report disruption and downtime over the last six months. The potential consequences are profound regarding workforce productivity and talent retention, employer brand, revenue and reputation.

To overcome this growing issue, IT departments need an observability solution that spans both on-premises and cloud-native environments and provides a full view of the entire application path. And they need real-time business transaction insights so that technologists can quickly pinpoint the root cause of issues and expedite resolution. This level of observability means that IT teams can ensure applications are fully optimized at all times and meet employees' heightened expectations.

Encouragingly for employers, while the impact of poor digital experiences damages employee engagement and retention, the other side of the story is that workers now look very favorably to employers who can offer high-performing applications. Significant numbers of employees report that they are more likely to stay with an employer that provides brilliant digital experiences and talk positively about the company to others.

To better engage and retain their talent, HR and business leaders must recognize the role that applications and digital services play in every part of the employee experience; and the importance that workers now attach to digital experience. By ensuring that they deliver seamless digital experiences to employees at all times, employers can take a big step towards building and retaining a more engaged, motivated and productive workforce.

Gregg Ostrowski, CTO advisor at Cisco AppDynamics, wrote this article.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CDOTrends. Image credit: iStockphoto/PeopleImages