Investing in the Digital Employee Experience

By staying proactive about common tech challenges associated with return-to-office mandates, HR leaders can support employee productivity and engagement, regardless of location.

By Liz Raymond

After the rush to adapt to hybrid and remote work, many organizations are now on the retreat. Amazon, Dell Technologies, JPMorgan, and The Washington Post are among those organizations enforcing a strict return-to-office (RTO) mandate, with discussions shifting from whether companies should deploy Zoom or Teams to ones around desk space and parking availability. This trend shows no signs of slowing down, with a KPMG survey revealing that 83% of CEOs expect a full return to the office within the next three years—a notable increase from 64% in 2023. 

Many workers are apprehensive about RTO mandates, pushing back in favor of keeping their work-life balance and shorter commutes. As a result, 67% of recruiters have seen a rise in candidates searching for new roles after their current employer began enforcing a five-day-a-week RTO policy. 

What is being lost amidst this debate are the practicalities of making RTO work for all. Yes, space considerations matter, but organizations have to ensure that staff remain engaged and productive regardless of their location. 

Missing What Matters  

Many of the current debates around productivity and RTO overlook the reality of day-to-day work for employees. For knowledge workers in particular, the true workplace isn’t the home or the office—it’s in applications. Nine out of 10 staff spend almost five hours a day using work messaging apps like Slack or Microsoft Teams. Whether they’re in the office or working remotely, these are the platforms people rely on to collaborate and communicate. 

Businesses take the performance of these tools for granted, even though pretty much everyone has had plenty of experience with slow load times, glitches, or connection issues disrupting their work, causing delays and frustration. This matters because when digital systems underperform, they don’t just cause a minor inconvenience—they impact how effectively employees can do their jobs, which in turn affects overall productivity. 

In a workplace where digital platforms are the backbone of operations, overlooking the quality and reliability of this technology is a critical misstep. Organizations that fail to ensure seamless digital experiences risk not only lower output, but diminished employee satisfaction too. 

The Hidden Costs of RTO 

All of this means that, for those businesses that are committed to pushing ahead with RTO, counterintuitively there has to be much more attention on the digital experience. For example, office Wi-Fi networks will be placed under significantly more strain if the number of users doubles or triples, potentially leading to slow performance and connectivity issues. 

Similarly, applications that run smoothly at home may function differently in the office with a new tech setup, creating issues for employees trying to access critical services. As support requests pile up, the IT service desk will experience higher demand, which means longer response times, even for common IT issues. 

The impact on productivity is inevitable. When devices and applications aren’t working as they should, staff are forced to step away from work to resolve IT issues. Constant technology disruptions mean employees are unable to perform at their best and as frustrations begin to mount, workers become disengaged. With efficiency declining across the workforce, business output takes a hit, leading to reduced profitability. 

Fixing Issues Before It’s Too Late 

Given the potential impact on employee satisfaction, productivity, and engagement, HR needs to partner with IT to take a leading role in managing the digital workspace and the digital employee experience (DEX), including everything from applications and devices to network reliability and cloud access. 

This starts by putting in place a cross-functional team that has genuine visibility into how staff is interacting with their digital tools. This approach requires organizations to invest in solutions that can holistically monitor the health of the digital workplace. Are applications running smoothly for all employees? Which devices are too slow and need to be replaced? Armed with answers to these sorts of questions, businesses can identify issues such as slow response times, connectivity issues, or frequent application crashes. Instead of relying on employees to report a problem, common IT issues can be resolved proactively through automated responses, such as reverting faulty software updates or optimizing network configurations before they impact productivity. 

By resolving IT problems proactively, staff maintain access to crucial applications and stay productive. And as less time is spent fixing technology issues, IT teams can dedicate more time to supporting workers, improving the employee’s experience with workplace technology. Most importantly, with a strategic approach to IT management, any tech challenges during RTO are minimized, helping organizations smoothly manage workplace transitions for all and minimizing disruptions to DEX so employees can do their best work. 

Reimagining the Employee Experience 

The workplace is evolving. It is no longer defined by physical locations, but by the tools and applications that employees rely on. This shift makes proactive IT analytics crucial to ensure employees and the technology they use work in harmony, instead of creating barriers to productivity. 

Addressing these challenges is key to making RTO work for every employee. Organizations need to provide staff with the right digital tools and IT support to maximize performance and create productive work environment. 

Liz Raymond is vice president of global talent at Nexthink.