Two strategies to create an innovative future of work in 2023

The way we work has drastically changed. From pre-pandemic in-person work to fully remote and now hybrid schedules, businesses have continuously adapted to the environments and circumstances around them and looked for ways to best serve their business goals and their employees. 2023 will be no different.

As we look to the new year, business leaders need to continue innovating to better compete and understand the employee experience. This innovation includes realizing when something isn’t working and fueling a negative culture – such as surveilling your workforce – and pivoting. How do leaders make these decisions and understand what it takes to create a positive culture and employee experience? They can start by implementing and evaluating the two ends of this spectrum while building the 2023 annual operating plan.

DEX and the future of work

Digital employee experience (DEX) technology continues to serve employees and create innovative ways for IT to shape the future of work. Leaders across all industries and organizations have seen firsthand the impact employee experience has on their culture, employee retention rates, and recruiting efforts. Yet, 95% of professionals still note that IT issues continue to disrupt employees’ digital experience in their organization – hindering productivity and diminishing workplace morale. Businesses that find a way to bring that percentage down in the next few years can achieve a faster resolution to IT issues, increased productivity, and better employee retention rates.

Additionally, while everyone has focused on employee experience (EX) technology working in hybrid and remote settings, business leaders are missing out on a key value add for these tools in shaping the way we work. It’s reported that 9 in 10 companies are requiring employees to work from the office come January. As companies make the decision to collaborate in person, 2023 will serve as an investment year into EX and DEX platforms to better prepare and set companies up for future success. In an office setting, we’ll see DEX platforms help provide better EX, better security, and enable productivity across the enterprise.

Productivity surveillance tools

On the flip side of the coin, the use of employee surveillance software rose by 50% during the height of the pandemic. Since March 2021, it has grown rapidly and shows no sign of slowing down. Even with recent media attention focused on the downsides of surveillance technology and monitoring employees for productivity, they’ve become standard practices.

We’ll continue to see this method of leadership and productivity tracking used, questioned, and debated throughout 2023. Currently, 78% of employers use software to spy on employees. This causes poor DEX, employee frustration, and also leads to the damaged culture we already discussed. To remediate this, leaders need to act now to understand the negative aspects of surveillance technology. Those leaders who do not take a hard look at this problem risk losing out to their competitors. When you spy on your people, you trade trust, culture, and morale for sketchy data and “productivity theater” – which will remain true without remediation.

Related: Journey mapping: A key to improving the employee experience

No one can predict what the future will look like, but DEX tools can help ease the transition for both employees and employers – and shift the ongoing trend of surveillance software. With the start of 2023 approaching, business innovation and planning are already happening. If DEX is not already a part of planning conversations, it should be.

Mark Banfield, CEO of 1E