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A letter from Ivanti CEO Jeff Abbott
In this third-annual Ivanti study of digital employee experience (DEX) — a survey of 7,800 IT professionals, executives and office workers around the globe — we wanted to understand how technology influences critical issues like employee productivity, satisfaction and retention, and what organizations can do to reduce tech-related friction and inefficiency.
The research shows that modern organizations have such complex technology ecosystems that managing DEX is both deeply challenging and mission critical. Even small workplace issues such as slow network connections or subpar device performance can have significant ripple effects — and not just on productivity. More than half (55%) of office workers say negative experiences with workplace technology impact their mood and morale.
Multiply this across thousands of employees, and small slowdowns and interruptions become significant organizational headwinds.
Managing DEX is about oiling the gears of the organizational machine — finding ways to automate fixes, anticipate problems and proactively solve them before the user is aware.
CIOs have a critical and visible role to play in this endeavor. Nearly all (97%) leadership-level executives say high-quality DEX boosts employee productivity. And 72% believe that a focus on DEX can elevate CIOs to a more strategic role in the organization.
Our hope is that the research will help guide your organization's approach to DEX in 2025 and help IT and business leaders deliver a truly frictionless digital employee experience.
Jeff Abbott
Chief Executive Officer, Ivanti
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CIOs understand that measuring and managing digital employee experience is a critical priority, but getting it right is still deeply challenging for many.
Your employees’ daily interactions with devices, apps and workplace interfaces have a profound impact on everything from productivity and workplace satisfaction to security preparedness.
Leadership-level executives agree. They report that high-quality DEX positively impacts:
Employee productivity: 97% |
Employee satisfaction: 96% |
Employee retention: 90% |
Executives aren’t the only ones who believe in DEX-related impacts. More than half (55%) of office workers say negative experiences with workplace technology impact their mood and morale.
Measuring and managing DEX can mitigate these challenges, but the barriers to doing so effectively are many. For example, most leaders and IT professionals agree that DEX can drive important, positive changes, but IT teams lack the executive support (i.e., budget) and operational know-how to get it done. And given how many demands they have on their time, IT simply isn’t prioritizing DEX.
Most IT professionals (60%) also report they find the term DEX to be “buzzy” … with no practical, real-world application. For IT leaders, this may be a sign that DEX’s true potential to improve workflows and employee work life has not been fully socialized with IT professionals.
Conversation about digital employee experience is particularly salient now, as company leaders and employees engage in a tug-of-war about the time and place of work.
Most office workers (86%) say they’re just as productive, if not more so, working off-site — and most want to work this way. Yet C-level executives appear to be pulling in the reins on remote working.
Executives are 2.6 times more likely than office workers to say employees need to be in the office to be productive.
For IT professionals, the issue is even thornier. IT says they are often hamstrung when working remotely; they struggle to collaborate with colleagues, be seen by managers and get tech support when they are out of the office.
Just 46% of IT professionals say it’s easy to access tools when working remotely. Compare this to leaders’ more optimistic take: 90% of executive leaders say employees have the tools to be productive in a remote or hybrid work environment.
The crux of the issue is: Employees want the option to work remotely, and they want to have access to tools and systems that make them productive and empowered — no matter where they sit down to work. On the other hand, leaders are no longer fully bought into the Everywhere Work movement. Plus, they’re not fully aware of the technology challenges their employees face when working off-site. These issues need to be addressed.
Supporting digital employee experience can have wide-ranging positive impacts — from employee outcomes like productivity and retention to supporting key business objectives and cybersecurity.
But there’s another angle to consider.
More than 3 in 4 leadership executives agree that CIOs who prioritize DEX earn greater influence with other organizational leaders.
The moment for data-driven DEX transformation is now.
The real game-changer for DEX is data … piles of data that is highly accessible across the organization. In the past, CIOs were bogged down by siloed data; they could not connect the dots.
Robert Grazioli
Chief Information Officer, Ivanti
When organizations break down those silos, they can surface insights derived from millions of experiences and touchpoints — across devices, applications and services. And they can deploy next-level solutions like automations and AIs to drive even higher performance.
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Ivanti’s research examines every aspect of digital employee experience — and it shows that organizations highly value DEX principles and outcomes but struggle to operationalize them.
Organizational leaders are adamant that optimizing DEX is important and necessary. Nearly all (97%) say high-quality DEX boosts employee productivity, and 69% call it a “high” or “essential” priority. And many more organizations are managing and prioritizing DEX today than they did in 2023.
However, despite claiming to value and prioritize DEX, many companies have yet to put DEX-related activities into practice. Fewer than half engage in DEX-essential activities like monitoring device performance.
Why is DEX management so highly valued but inconsistently practiced?
IT and security professionals tell us that cost and budget are the most common barriers to prioritizing DEX. Executives agree. Even though 65% of executives say budgets for DEX tools and management are on the rise, fewer than half (49%) of IT teams use DEX management tools.
Measuring DEX performance is critical to understanding its impacts, yet many organizations don’t track important DEX metrics, such as DEX scores (48% do this), device/user analytics (42%) and speed of ticket resolution (39%).
The goal of DEX management is to surface critical insights from across the organization that can guide action and investments — yet clearly many companies are still struggling to get a unified, actionable view of employee experience. Nearly half (48%) of IT professionals say budget is a barrier, and 35% say that a lack of skilled talent is a critical hurdle. (Ironically, well-managed DEX is a benefit for IT teams because it reduces IT workloads.) An overly complex tech stack is another significant challenge; 34% say it prevents them from managing and prioritizing DEX.
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A closer look at how tech friction affects employees and organizations.
A large share of office workers reports technology challenges at work — be they stress due to the number of tools they interact with, or embarrassment about having technology-related problems.
How do these challenges play out? At least once per month, office workers experience:
The list of slowdowns, connection glitches and other tech frustrations is deeply troubling. It’s no wonder 60% of office workers report frustration with their tech tools.
The problem: Slowdowns and breakdowns in these small digital touchpoints not only affect productivity, they also affect workplace satisfaction and morale … and organizational leaders may not even know they exist.
What’s the big deal about an employee having to restart their computer in the middle of the day? Or a slower-than-usual connection to an app? The problem is that when you take these little interruptions and multiply them across your workforce — then quantify the impacts to everything from employee workflows and efficiency, to help desk traffic volume — those small interruptions add up to significant productivity slowdowns and significant frustration for end-users. And when employees experience friction and frustration, the downstream effects are felt across IT and security teams.
Kristen Kamp
SVP, Global Human Resources, Ivanti
Technology problems and DEX friction also have important security implications.
The tech and retail industries were more likely to use unapproved shortcuts and workarounds than other industry groups.
And leaders in particular are guilty of bypassing security protocols — presumably because it’s easier or faster. 53% report bypassing a security protocol at least one time in the past year.
Hybrid and remote working adds to the challenge for IT teams. 1 in 2 office workers who work remotely at least part time say they can’t always access and use the same workplace tools when working off-site.
Employees prefer to have flexibility about the where and when of work, so despite the challenges, employers must find ways not just to accommodate remote workers, but to truly empower them. Companies have made progress on this front, but there is still work to do. Nearly 1 in 4 office workers report that the tools they use working remotely are not as effective as those they use in the office.
Employers and employees are still negotiating whether employees can work from home and how effectively they do so. Conversations about technology are often left off the table, but the research shows that technology — and digital employee experience — are critical parts of the Everywhere Work calculus. Organizations need to take a closer look at how technology can make working remotely not just possible, but also seamless, dynamic and productive.
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What can organizations do to reduce digital friction and elevate the role of IT?
IT professionals say their most pressing help desk challenges are high ticket volume, limited resources and long resolution times. To solve these and many other issues, IT teams are focused on boosting employee retention and improving help desk quality and responsiveness.
Managing DEX can help across all these challenges. For example:
Despite these positive outcomes, IT hasn’t fully bought into the value and impact of doing so. IT teams are less likely than leadership to say improving DEX positively affects productivity, retention and satisfaction.
Herein lies a critical challenge for IT leaders to resolve. Plenty of research shows DEX drives positive outcomes. Even non-IT leaders can agree on this, as Ivanti’s research shows. But converting attitudes into action is deeply challenging, particularly for overworked IT teams who say they’re stressed and burned out.
The stakes are high to get this right. Among IT professionals:
86%“Poor digital experiences lead employees to use unsafe workarounds.” |
69%“Work stress is affecting my physical and/or mental health.” |
56%“I regularly experience burnout at work.” |
These are not simply employee satisfaction or retention risks. Consider that these are the people who are tasked with maintaining the uninterrupted productivity and security of the business.
How can managing DEX help IT?
The challenge for organizations today: detecting and/or solving problems before humans are involved — before employees experience slowdowns and before the help desk is tied up in solving these issues.
Self-healing systems can remediate technology problems before they interrupt work, without human intervention; however, some intermediate solutions can surface problems and help employees take action — saving time and avoiding more serious interruptions.
For example, organizations can use automations that diagnose a problem and ask the end user to take action (e.g., detecting a device slowdown and prompting the end user to file a help desk ticket or asking the user to run through basic troubleshooting steps).
These types of self-service systems can ease the traffic burden for IT teams. Consider that 72% of office workers say their first step in resolving IT problems is a non-help desk solution such as asking a coworker (26%) or researching a solution on their own (18%). Offering employees help desk chatbots or robust knowledge bases support this desire to solve their problems quickly and independently.
A word of caution: A large percentage of office workers prefer to speak to a human rather than a chatbot (50%) when they need assistance. Even so, of those who say they prefer humans, 66% would be willing to use a chatbot if they knew a human was one click away. The overriding priority for employees seeking technology help is speed. Employers should offer options for their employees to seek solutions in the ways they prefer — be it speaking to a human, using a chatbot or consulting a knowledge base to seek more information.
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5 predictions for 2025 based on the DEX research
1. IT leaders must prove the value of DEX by focusing on IT teams’ digital employee experience.
Ivanti’s research shows that organizational leaders understand DEX’s potential — 90%+ believe high-quality DEX improves employee productivity, satisfaction and retention — yet only 42% of IT professionals say their organizations’ leaders truly buy into the value of DEX.
IT leaders can prove the powerful impact of well-managed DEX, but only if IT team members are on board.
“DEX needs to start with IT because they are tasked with enabling DEX and transforming the organization,” says Jeff Abbott, CEO of Ivanti. “Currently, IT is feeling burned out by high ticket volume and all the complex demands of Everywhere Work — so when a new initiative like DEX is suggested, it can be difficult for IT professionals to see beyond their immediate sense of stress and overwhelm.”
Ensuring IT can access the tools they need to perform their job well anywhere, whether in-office or remote, needs to be a top priority for IT leaders. Currently, 23% of IT workers who work remotely at least part-time say their tools are not as effective off-site — an unacceptably high proportion, given that most prefer the flexibility of hybrid or remote work.
2. Companies will use DEX-improvement strategies to ease unresolved tensions of the Everywhere Work movement.
The majority of office workers (86%) say they’re just as productive or more productive working remotely — and most prefer to work that way. Yet the research shows executive leaders are far less convinced; they are 2.6 times more likely than office workers to say employees need to be in the office to be productive.
Investing in high-quality DEX tools and processes can be a win-win by making employees more productive working off-site and giving leaders the ability to measure and manage productivity — no matter where or when employees work.
3. Together, AI and DEX will transform IT workflows and reduce IT burnout.
AI-enabled DEX can transform internal processes and systems and remove low-value work from the IT workflow. Organizations will double down on action-oriented DEX — solving problems proactively, before they surface and create friction; for example, installing a new patch, fixing slowed performance or reacting to any other data “signal” across a vast tech ecosystem. Managed properly, AI investments will improve the quality of life of IT professionals who are currently overwhelmed by the demands of empowering Everywhere Work.
4. Savvy CIOs will use DEX to elevate their roles and gain visibility as strategists.
Nearly 3 in 4 executives say DEX can elevate the role of the CIO, making IT leaders a part of strategic business conversations within the organization.
Why? Because DEX influences major business drivers, including employee experience, retention and productivity. A staggering 97% of leadership-level executives say high-quality DEX boosts employee productivity and 90% say it positively impacts employee retention. Now, CIOs must turn ideas into action — demonstrating how investments in best-in-class technology, reimagined workflows and highly accessible data can transform business performance.
5. DEX will force IT to confront fragmented tech stacks.
Building a DEX strategy requires that organizations finally integrate what is currently a highly fragmented IT tech stack. Without integration, IT won’t be able to extract the valuable insights they need to understand how their users are interacting with technology – and how those experiences can be improved and transformed.
Daren Goeson, SVP of product management at Ivanti, explains, “A large share of organizations don't have an effective toolset to understand digital employee experience. That’s because many DEX tools require complex and costly integrations with other systems in their ITSM or device management systems. Without integrations, DEX progress can be slow — even when the organization highly prioritizes DEX initiatives.”
Ivanti surveyed over 7,800 IT professionals, executives and end users around the world to understand what organizations are doing to enable positive digital employee experience (DEX) and the significant barriers organizations face to deliver frictionless experiences.
This study was administered by Ravn Research, and panelists were recruited by MSI Advanced Customer Insights. Survey results are unweighted. Further details by country are available by request.
Get key findings and survey results, including charts and graphs, in a presentation-ready format
