New research suggests that poor technology and the digital friction it creates are undermining hybrid work productivity.
A study by Scalable Software polled 2,000 workers and found that the average digital employee experience (DEX) has regressed since the organisation's first such study in 2021 — and that current technology and processes are wasting valuable time. Scalable Software says that workers are working an additional 3.1 weeks a year because of poor DEX, an increase of nearly a week compared with the 2.2 additional weeks when the survey was performed in 2021.
Almost one-fifth (18 percent) of employees considered the DEX provided by their employer as "poor", up from 15 percent in 2021. Only 34 percent of workers consider their DEX "adequate".
A critical factor is digital friction, defined by Gartner as the "unnecessary effort extended by employees using technology for work", which undermines productivity and underpins poor DEX.
Mark Cresswell, Co-founder of Scalable Software, wrote in the report that while hybrid work at large is facing scrutiny as more and more organisations implement a return-to-office mandate of some kind post-pandemic, the real problem is digital technologies, regardless of what location they're leveraged:
But importantly, the research reveals that it isn’t hybrid work itself that makes employees less productive. It’s the poor DEX knowledge workers are subjected to that impacts their ability to work effectively. And that applies however an employee works – remotely, hybrid, or in the office. Half (50 percent) of all knowledge workers in our survey say negative DEX makes them less productive at their job."
Other notable findings include the varying instances of what digital friction comprises, with many workers citing "application switching" (35 percent) and "notification overload" (30 percent) as factors in poor DEX. "Complicated workflows that require extra steps to complete, even for routine tasks", are cited by 28 percent, while "user interfaces that are hard to navigate and confusing" were cited by just under one-quarter (24 percent).
Knowledge workers are estimated to waste an average of 2.83 hours per week grappling with malfunctioning technology, slow system performance, and suboptimal design and workflows. The study highlights an even greater time loss in companies with 1,501-2,000 employees (3.58 hours) and those with 2,001-3,000 employees (3.4 hours), as well as within the business services (3.42 hours) and telecoms (3.68 hours) spaces.
The overall impact of poor DEX translates to a weekly time loss of 5.55 hours for an individual knowledge worker.
Perhaps most alarmingly, almost two-thirds (62 percent) of those polled said IT departments don’t understand how they work or provide them with a personalised service, an increase on the 49 percent of respondents who said similarly in 2021.
Many respondents stated that poor DEX has negatively impacted their job satisfaction (43 percent), compared to 38 percent in 2021. Significantly more have said it makes them want to leave their job (29 percent) in 2024 than in 2021 (18 percent).
