The Experience 2020
Report: Digital Employee
Experience today
SURVEY CONDUCTED BY VANSON BOURNE

Introduction
By Jon Cairns, VP, Global Solution Consulting at Nexthink

Modern businesses understand how quickly a tacticaltechnology issue can become a significant strategic risk.
From the data center to your endpoints, IT represents thenervous system for any enterprise, and every employee
depends on it to be productive. The growth of remote
working makes these facts even more significant.
Consequently, Digital Employee Experience (DEX) impacts
everything from productivity, retention, and customer
satisfaction, to your bottom line. Today, the most forwardthinking organizations understand what it really means
to manage their DEX. They have real visibility into theiremployee computing problems and can resolve thoseissues at scale.
However, many organizations are just beginning their journey.
That is why Nexthink commissioned this independent survey
from Vanson Bourne of 1,000 senior IT leaders and 2,000
employees (non-IT), to help share insight into the issues
faced by most employees today.
We hope you find this research useful, whichever stage ofthe DEX journey you’re on.

Table of contents
Data highlights

3Employees, IT and productivity

4-6

Innovation and visibility

7-9

Business benefits and costs
About the survey

10 - 12132

Data highlights

82%

Organizations alreadyrecognize the importance ofDigital Employee Experience
to business performance,with 82% rating it ‘very
important’ to ‘critical’

82%

56%

61%

Employees are expecting
improvements: 82% ofemployees would liketo see more done bytheir organizations toimprove DEX

Inability to measure new
IT rollouts: On average,
IT departments only have
56% visibility into the stateof new technology rollouts,
and only 45% visibility into
the issues impacting
employee experience

IT issues at work arecommonplace: 61% of
respondents agree that IT
downtime is an accepted
norm in their organization

SURVEY CONDUCTED BY VANSON BOURNE

3

Employees, IT andproductivity
Vanson Bourne surveyed significant sample sizes ofboth employees and senior IT leaders. By contrasting
and combining their answers, you can start to piece
together what the real cost of poor Digital Employee
Experience is, both on individual productivity, and thewider organization’s bottom line.

Incidents reported

55%

Employee respondents admit they report
only around half of their technology
issues to the IT department on average

IT contacted

66%

Percentage of respondents thathave ever contacted IT aboutany IT/technology issue

Employees impacted

79%

The majority of our respondents agreed,
however, that when IT issues are notreported, it always leads to bigger problems“WATCH VIDEO

How did you measureexperience ten years
ago? You could spend
half an hour at thecoffee machine andfind someone that will
explain the problem
they have with theirdevice. Today it’sdifferent.
Cedric Le Coguic

Group IT Technical ProjectManager, MCI GroupSURVEY CONDUCTED BY VANSON BOURNE

4Duration of technology issues

24
Minutes

The average number of minutes senior
IT leaders report that IT/technology
issues prevent their organization’s
employees from doing their job.

The average number of minutes
employees report that their IT/technology issues last.

28
MinutesFrequency of technology issues

2xPer weekx2

Average frequency of technology
issues, per employee, according
to IT respondents

If only 55% of tech issues arereported to IT, however, the real
frequency could be twice as bad

SURVEY CONDUCTED BY VANSON BOURNE

5

Barriers to productivity impact business performance:• IT told Vanson Bourne that an employee

suffers on average around 100 IT/technology
interruptions a year

• If IT is correct then, with each interruption lasting

28 minutes, this adds up to almost 50 hours of lost
productivity per employee per year

• With employees reporting just over half ofincidents (55%), however, the real productivity
drain could be almost twice as bad as IT estimates• For a company of 10,000 employees, this equates
to costs of $500,000 per week and $25 million
per year“This data proves the strategic cost of poor Digital
Employee Experience (DEX). When you multiply theinterruptions by the number of employees you see thatit’s a huge productivity loss. And it’s not just in terms ofbottom line, it’s also in terms of employee satisfaction.
Many of these users will be wondering if they could havea better experience in another company.
Jon Cairns

VP, Global Solution Consulting at Nexthink

SURVEY CONDUCTED BY VANSON BOURNE

6Innovation andvisibility
Though modern enterprises focus on innovation, the reality
is that they struggle to deliver smooth technology rollouts
for their employees. IT departments and employees also
experience these technology rollouts differently—and theircontrasting perceptions reinforce the narrative that there isoften a void between both camps.

Visibility of success

56%

The average level of visibility
IT has into the success of newtechnology rollouts

Visibility of uptake

58%

The average level of visibilityIT has into the adoption of newtechnology

Visibility of issues

45%

The average level of visibility
IT has into issues with newtechnology“WATCH VIDEO

We know there’s going
to be changes in ourenvironment. But how
can we manage thosechanges, control thosechanges, and drive theright technologies tohelp people consume
those technologies
with a frictionlessexperience?
Bhavin ShahApplication Service DeskManager, Johnson & Johnson

SURVEY CONDUCTED BY VANSON BOURNE

7

Divergent perspectives on innovation

A majority of our IT respondents
thought innovation activities at theirorganization had been mostly (60%)
or totally successful (4%)

64%

The experience of our employee
respondents was different. Totally
successful innovation activities weresimilarly low (2%), but mostly successful
responses (39%) were much lower.

Across all of our respondents,
there was agreement that
improvement was requiredin the introduction of newtechnologies (88%) andinnovation (85%)

41%

Q: “How much improvement do you believe is required
from your organization’s IT department in the followingareas?” [employees and IT]
Introducing new technologies
A total overhaul is needed

13%

Large improvements

37%

Small improvements

37%

No improvements
Don’t know

10%3%

Innovating the way we work
A total overhaul is needed

14%

Large improvements

36%

Small improvements

36%

No improvements
Don’t know

SURVEY CONDUCTED BY VANSON BOURNE

12%
3%

8

Transformation challenges for employees and IT

Five most common difficulties
suffered by employees during
recent technology rollout (last12-24 months)

Five most common difficulties
suffered by senior IT leadersduring recent technology
rollout (last 12-24 months)

1Bugs took a long time to fix

2Inconsistencies in the rollout across different departments

3

No training was provided on the new technology

4

It took a long time to boot up

5

It kept crashing/freezing

1

Integrating the new technology with old systems

2Pre-existing bugs with technology that needed fixing

3

Employees being incompetent using new technology

4

We were inundated with employee requests for support

5

Crashes and freezing

31%

28%

27%

26%

25%

40%

30%

29%

28%

27%

“IT tends to have great visibility into their network, the applications, the server,
the data center – but when a user is calling the helpdesk to report an issue,
IT doesn’t have visibility into how the user is experiencing this issue. There
are often other factors around the employee that can make the experiencepoor, and that’s the visibility that many organizations are missing.

Jon Cairns

VP, Global Solution Consulting at Nexthink

SURVEY CONDUCTED BY VANSON BOURNE

9Business benefits
and costs
Vanson Bourne sought to gauge the current standing ofDigital Employee Experience (DEX) within the enterprise,and its relation to employee experience more generally.
How seriously is DEX being treated by employers, andwhat can be done to improve the overall picture? Theresults tell an interesting story.

Estimated satisfaction

25%

IT told us that one in four of their users
were ‘completely satisfied’ with their
Digital Employee Experience

Real satisfaction

17%

However, the real DEX satisfaction
rate of our employee respondents
was almost 10% lower

Low expectations

32%

A higher percentage of respondents
were ‘completely satisfied’ with theiroverall at-work experience (IT andemployees)

SURVEY CONDUCTED BY VANSON BOURNE“WATCH VIDEOIt’s very importantfor us to get to thesustainable aspect.
How to make sure we
get to a condition, andthen go on to the next
improvement and thenthe next improvement
and always improve.
Arnaud Pire

Senior Manager IT, Toyota MotorEurope

10Is Digital Employee Experience the weak link in employee experience?

61%

The proportion of employees whobelieve that IT/technology downtime isan accepted norm in their organization.

There was a strong will to see
improvements in DEX in these
employee respondents, with 82%
telling us their employers should
do more in this area.

82%

Driving employee experience with Digital Employee Experience:• IT estimates that 25% of their users are ‘completely satisfied’.
The reality, however, is that employee respondents report alower satisfaction rate that this (17%)• For employee experience overall – the total experience

received at work – the average is higher, with 32% ofrespondents reporting that they are ‘completely satisfied’• With 61% telling us IT downtime is an accepted normat their organization, no wonder 82% of employees
would like to see more done by employers toimprove Digital Employee Experience

SURVEY CONDUCTED BY VANSON BOURNE

11

Digital Employee Experience: risks and benefits

Five biggest impacts of poor
Digital Employee Experience[employees]

Five biggest benefits ofimproved Digital EmployeeExperience [employees]

1

I am left playing catch up

2

Quality of work is negatively impacted

3

I can’t do any aspect of my job at all4

I am left frustrated and demoralized with work5

My customers are directly impacted

1

It will improve day-to-day efficiency

2

It will improve employee motivation and commitment

3It will have a positive knock on effect for customer satisfaction

4It will have a positive knock on effect for profitability

5

It will improve employee retention rates

42%

38%

33%

31%

31%

60%

51%

41%

37%

33%

“Digital Employee Experience is an enormously important part of employee
experience. Many people are looking at their companies through thewindow of their devices, through applications. So, with the growth of theremote working, many employees will have all their interactions with theircompanies through digital applications.

Jon Cairns

VP, Global Solution Consulting at Nexthink

SURVEY CONDUCTED BY VANSON BOURNE

12ABOUT THE SURVEY
3,000 senior IT leader and employee respondents wereinterviewed during November and December 2019, split
in the following ways…

Employees

Senior IT leaders

Respondent type

1000

ABOUT NEXTHINK
2000

Nexthink is the global leader inDigital Employee Experiencemanagement. The company’s
products allow enterprises tocreate highly productive digital
workplaces for their employees
by delivering optimal end-user
experiences. Through a unique
combination of real-time analytics,
automation and employeefeedback across all endpoints,
Nexthink helps IT teams meetthe needs of the modern digital
workplace.

Respondent country

800400400200USUKSURVEY CONDUCTED BY VANSON BOURNE

400400200200FranceGermany

Have questions about theNexthink platform?
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