A report by Forrester shows that a five per cent enhancement in employee engagement can lead to three per cent rise in bottom-line revenue. Clearly, engagement increases when employees are able to make progress in the work that matters to them the most. However, when they are aware that a certain task needs to be accomplished, but are unable to because of technological limitations, then they experience frustration and become disengaged. Offering employees the right technological resources is important to ensure a great employee experience. Only employees who are themselves happy can provide customers with happy experiences.
Forrester Consulting was commissioned by Intel and Lenovo, to assess the employee experience strategies adopted by companies across the world and examine employees’ experiences with the technology and devices provided to them by their employers.
The study revealed that positive employee experience is dependent on employees’ satisfaction with technology. About 60 per cent of those who monitor the key performance indicators — from the 1,014 IT decision makers surveyed — felt that employees’ experiences are better if they are satisfied with the technology they are using.
While the IT decision makers feel they are quite flexible when it comes to the technology they offer, the employees themselves do not agree. Most of the employees are not as satisfied with the laptops they use as with the other technologies or devices.
While three-fourth of the full-time professionals surveyed feel that PC devices are essential to ensure engagement, 69 per cent also agree that they are important when it comes to customer satisfaction, and 62 per cent feel it is essential for growth of revenue. A significant 55 per cent felt that PCs and other devices play a role in employee retention.
With the pandemic forcing employees to work from home, and relying more on technology, organisations have begun to focus on employee experience initiatives. They have begun to invest in better devices for employees as well as better software. Almost 40 per cent of the companies are readying for a hybrid model of working in the future.
Those who have invested in employee experiences have received returns on investments too. On an average, a five-fold return on investments has been reported. In fact, for every dollar spent on ensuring better experience, the return has been five dollars, in terms of better customer satisfaction, improved productivity and more agility. Therefore, companies are considering investing double in the next two years in ways to improve employee experience. While earlier they used to invest 15 per cent of their IT budget on experience initiatives, they are now thinking of investing nearly 25 per cent in the next two years.
More than 50 per cent of the companies surveyed used ‘employee satisfaction with technology’ as a key performance indicator (KPI) to assess how effective their technology-related investments in ensuring experience have been. Almost 60 per cent have perceived an over 10 per cent increase in their employee experience, by investing in technology that would ensure employee satisfaction.
