In the competitive war for talent, our firm excelled at attracting world-class professionals but often fell short in enabling them to perform at their best. The root of these shortcomings frequently lay in subpar technology experiences, which became a source of frustration throughout the employee lifecycle. Workarounds became commonplace, chipping away at productivity, satisfaction, and trust.
These challenges underscored an urgent need to rethink our approach to technology - not merely as a collection of tools but as a fundamental pillar of the employee experience (EX).
For IT, the mandate is clear: ensure the money spent translates into tangible value for the business. When IT fails to help the organisation extract value, its relevance is inevitably questioned.
What Is Employee Experience?
Employee experience is the sum of every interaction an employee has with their employer, from being a candidate to offboarding and beyond. These touchpoints shape perceptions of the organisation and place a ceiling on productivity. EX is ultimately about the feelings you leave behind. When employees feel confused, uninformed, or frustrated, their productivity and engagement inevitably suffer.
Experience gaps - moments where reality falls short of expectations - can erode business value. Closing these gaps is the goal of effective EX management, and technology functions have a pivotal role to play.
What Does Technology Have to Do with EX?
Employee experience (EX) is a product of three interconnected elements: company culture, the physical workspace, and the technology employees rely on every day. Culture and physical spaces are increasingly delivered or enhanced through technology – the importance of technology to the overall employee experience has never been greater.
To unlock the full potential of our workforce, we recognised that we needed to go beyond simply deploying technology. Instead, we had to design it with empathy - ensuring it was intuitive, aligned with employee needs, and a catalyst for productivity and satisfaction.
This shift required adopting human-centred design (HCD) principles. By embedding the needs, behaviours, and experiences of employees into our approach, we could deliver technology solutions that:
• Meet employee needs: Reducing friction and enhancing satisfaction.
• Enhance productivity: Tools that are intuitive and seamless help employees focus on their work, not on troubleshooting.
• Were optimised for adoption: Higher adoption rates ensure a faster return on technology investments.
The Power of Human-Centred Design
Human-centred design (HCD) places empathy and collaboration at the heart of solving real user needs. This approach transformed our work, starting with a robust Voice of the Employee (VoE) program that captured feedback and identified gaps in the technology experience across the employee lifecycle.
We developed a taxonomy of over 60 technology-enabled experiences, from Talent Acquisition and Onboarding to Hybrid Working, Search & Findability, and Meeting Room Experience. Guided by VoE insights and leadership input, we systematically prioritised and addressed these gaps, driving measurable improvements at every step.
Traditional IT functions often lack the tools or UX expertise to uncover and act on such insights effectively. While IT teams typically use telemetry data for operational purposes, they rarely leverage it for strategic insights. While Product Managers may ask, “Do you like my product?” and hear glowing feedback, experienced UX Researchers dig deeper, uncovering specific pain points and areas for improvement. By introducing VoE and embracing UX Research and UX Design methods, we identified hidden pain points and opportunities, enabling us to design more impactful solutions, providing close to ‘consumer grade’ experiences.
Striking Gold – Bringing Together Telemetry With Sentiment
To supercharge our efforts, we combined telemetry data with sentiment analysis and qualitative research. This holistic approach allowed us to create an employee-centric Common Data Model (CDM), integrating over 20 data sources, including Nexthink, Office 365, ServiceNow ticket data, and qualitative research insights. While the scale of this effort may seem daunting, even smaller-scale implementations of this principle can yield powerful results.
For instance, by correlating user sentiment with PC telemetry data we identified underperforming laptops long before they failed entirely. Instead of waiting for devices to reach the end of a three-year lifecycle, we designed a telemetry-driven model to identify laptops that repeatedly or consistently breached our pre-defined performance threshold over a 60-day period. These laptops could then be proactively refreshed, eliminating months or years of frustration for employees who might otherwise have struggled with inadequate tools. Interestingly, this approach also gave us the opportunity to extend the life of machines that were performing consistently well at the end of the 3-year asset life, more than off-setting the cost of refreshing some users early.
Rethinking the Basics: Technology That Works for Humans
HCD also transformed how we approached other everyday challenges, such as meeting room technology. How many times have you gone to start a meeting and struggled, only to find a guide on the table with 4 pages of instruction in small print?! Too often, rooms are designed for Engineers, not employees at large.
Then you get the tech working, and the experience fails to improve: cameras positioned facing windows, creating silhouettes; poor microphone placement makes conversations near incomprehensible for remote participants. Should I go on? Applying HCD principles, we redesigned spaces to ensure technology enhanced, rather than hindered, communication.
Thinking back to ‘workarounds’ - in one striking example, qualitative research revealed a senior leader who resorted to using freezer blocks to cool her overheating laptop. The helpdesk process was perceived as too painful to bother with. Her workaround may have been ingenious, but it underscored a failure to identify and address fundamental technology needs. Listening is not enough. We have to hear, and action!
The Role of Nexthink
Nexthink became a critical enabler of our transformation. Its ability to capture real-time telemetry data and provide actionable insights illuminated blind spots across the IT landscape. From identifying underperforming devices to analysing application adoption, Nexthink helped us pinpoint areas for improvement and prioritise interventions.
By looking at time on task, Nexthink also enabled us to segment our workforce. For example, someone who spends 80% of their day on calls has very different needs to someone who spends 80% of their day in Excel. We were able to use such data insights to create needs-based segmentation, overlay personas and create ‘Day in the life of’ artefacts. Designing solutions to meet individual needs is critical to creating experiences that deliver satisfaction.
Importantly, Nexthink allowed us to quantify the impact of our efforts, building a compelling case for further investment in EX.
Collaboration Beyond IT
Delivering a seamless employee experience required collaboration beyond the technology function. We partnered with HR to integrate digital experience insights into onboarding processes and to optimise HR Service Delivery. We worked with Facilities to redesign workspaces that supported hybrid working models. And we collaborated with business leaders and business custodians to highlight opportunities and ensure technology aligned with strategic goals.
This cross-functional approach ensured that EX improvements were not siloed but woven into the fabric of the organization.
Advice for IT Leaders
For IT leaders embarking on a similar journey, here are three key recommendations:
1. Invest in VoE listening: Truly understand the needs and frustrations of employees - not just through metrics, but through qualitative insights that add depth and nuance to your data.
2. Proactively address experience gaps: Don’t wait for employees to find workarounds. Helpdesk tickets only offer a glimpe into the issues users face. Leverage data to identify and resolve potential challenges before they impact productivity or become a bigger problem that becomes a mission to walk back.
3. Collaborate across functions: Silos are your enemy. Recognise that EX is a shared responsibility. Partner with HR, Facilities, and other teams to deliver holistic solutions.
By placing employees at the heart of your technology strategy, you can transform frustration into satisfaction, inefficiency into productivity, and reduce costs. The result? A more engaged, empowered workforce and a technology function that truly drives the business forward.
As technology organisations look to build or refine their EX capabilities, the complexity of this transformation shouldn’t be underestimated. Leveraging experts who have successfully navigated the challenges before can be the difference between simply implementing a solution and truly unlocking its potential.