Troubleshooting the Digital Workspace to Improve Employee Experience
Our approach to work has drastically changed following the migration to remote and hybrid work. Sarah Lahav, CEO, SysAid discusses how the widespread digital transformation of work has impacted the IT industry and ways to improve the overall employee experience.
The pandemic has catalyzed an ongoing shift from working in offices to the digital workspace across virtually all industries. Indeed, remote working kept many businesses afloat during the difficult early months of the pandemic, and, by many accounts, hybrid working is here to stay.
But this trend has also increased demand and workload for IT departments, now tasked with addressing a widening slate of digital platforms and services. With a growing number of users working remotely, whether, at home, in coffee shops, nomadically, or elsewhere, IT support is on standby everywhere and all the time.
The Effect of Remote Work on It Service Providers
A recent survey of over 1,200 IT managers, admins, analysts, and C-level directors regarding the state of IT service management found that an improved employee experience was the number one challenge in offering remote IT support. This trend reflects research on the effects of the “great resignation,” which concluded that technology that enables employees to work efficiently and without friction is one of the nine key elements for creating a positive employee experience. Satisfied employees are a critical growth driver; if employees aren’t happy doing their job digitally, efficiency is squandered.
That is why today’s IT employees are under immense pressure to meet the needs of an unprecedentedly large digital workforce consistently. As such, IT leaders must be prepared to recontextualize the role of IT in modern business – embracing a shift in mindset from servicing products and platforms to serving the employees who use them to work productively and efficiently.
The Impact of It on Business Performance
IT departments have played a role behind the scenes – always expected to step in from the shadows and fix issues as soon as they arise, leaving no trace other than a job well done – their services are often taken for granted and undervalued.
The advent of the pandemic has led many to recognize the crucial role of IT fully. With the move to remote work, Gartner reported,” Inflation previously seen with IT hardware such as mobile devices, tablets, and PCs are spilling into software and services.” The challenges of this inflation fall on IT teams who need to manage these subscriptions and services for all employees and ensure everything runs smoothly to keep business flowing. Now more than ever, seamlessly functioning digital tools are the essential tool not only for business goals but for a positive and successful employee experience as well.
Pre-pandemic research shows that only 4% of IT service management (ITSM) professionals believed their business colleagues thought IT costs were optimized and offered great value. But the same recent management services survey found that 61% of IT workers feel that IT has been prioritized over the last two years in terms of salaries, budget, and recognition.
Nevertheless, 57% of survey respondents report that they are still not measuring the IT department’s impact on business performance. Clearly, the ongoing IT revolution is far from over.
The Needs of the Digital Service Desk
When asked about service desk goals in 2022, survey respondents’ two top priorities were fostering productivity through automation (57%) and increasing the adoption of self-service solutions (49%).
Automating digital processes often allows service management to run by itself or significantly expedites time to resolution, alleviating both IT teams and non-technical employees of some of their burden and providing a better employee experience.. True, not all processes lend themselves to automation, but by automating as many IT services and tedious manual tasks as possible, the weight of “maintenance” is at least partially lifted from employees, allowing them to refocus on work more suited to their skills. Such solutions range from automating tickets and tasks to automatically building and managing workflows.
It is helpful to embrace solutions that foster self-service for those processes that can’t be automated. Often, staff don’t have the time or patience to wait around to be helped but would rather be empowered to do it themselves. Self-service is becoming more and more of a standard
By building and adopting platforms that enable self-service, IT departments are spared from unnecessary tasks, and employees can facilitate a smooth working experience for themselves, no matter where they are working. But 42% of IT professionals surveyed still say that self-service options are not available for employees – something IT leaders should strive to change as they look to the future.
The Potential of AI Chatbots
AI chatbots have huge potential for providing service to customers and users alike, which is why there is a rise in their usage across industries – from hospitality to banking to retail.
According to the ITSM professionals surveyed, chatbots provide the greatest value in the following areas:
- Categorizing and assigning tickets (30.6%)
- Handling the initial conversation for a new service request (30.6%)
- Facilitating more efficient workflows (26.8%)
- Offering AI-powered searching and troubleshooting (12%)
Despite the promise of AI chatbots, only 11.1% of respondents to the survey shared that they use chatbots in their service. We expect this figure to grow as more and more IT teams integrate this highly effective tool into their toolbox.
See More: Can AI in Recruitment Transform Hiring in a Post-Pandemic World? Q&A With DaXtra Technologies
Pay IT Forward
IT teams want features and solutions that facilitate positive working experiences which help colleagues work more effectively and, by extension, improve their workplace experience. Nevertheless, many IT departments have still not adequately reassessed which solutions are necessary to support their employees in the wake of the shift to remote or hybrid work..
Although the results of this survey show that there is still work to be done in redefining the role of IT, they also show a clear path forward. It is up to us leaders, both within and outside of the IT world, to better understand the new challenges of the digital workspace and the rise of remote work. We need to enable IT departments (and, in turn, entire organizations) to adapt to the unfolding digital age and improve the experience for end-users and IT experts.
Have you considered transforming workspaces to improve the employee experience? Which tech/tools have you used to do so? Lets us know on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. We would love to hear from you!
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