Providing more digital experiences is a must for next gen workforce, study finds
95% of leaders say at least one major obstacle is impacting their ability to deliver an excellent digital experience.
The so-called Digital Employee Experience (DEX) changes as fast as the technology that drives it. As Boomers retire and more Millennial and Gen Zs enter the workforce, companies are considering how best to approach and re-envision the DEX for workers. A new Global DEX Survey 2023, from Riverbed, polled 1,800 global IT leaders across 10 countries and seven industries, and showed that 91% of respondents believe they must provide more advanced digital experiences to meet Gen Z/millennial needs.
Creating a great DEX is critical to employee retention, improving employee engagement, boosting employee productivity, and growing a business. Overall, 95% of leaders say at least one major obstacle is impacting their ability to deliver an excellent digital experience. The top five obstacles identified: budget constraints, talent shortages, inadequate observability tools, the lack of appropriate cloud services and Software as a Service (SaaS) apps, and too much data – which leads to complexity.
In the survey, 92% of business and IT leaders say investing in DEX is among their top priories for the next five years. Eighty-nine percent are accelerating digital experience adoption and implementation. Also, 89% say younger generation employees place increased pressure on IT resources and 88% of IT leaders will invest in technology over the next 12-18 months to support the hybrid workforce – highlighting the importance of digital solutions in enabling efficient collaboration and productivity.
Sixty-three percent of survey respondents said they believe a failure to meet the digital experience demands of younger generations would be either disruptive or reputation/business destroying, with 68% stating that younger employees will leave their organizations due to poor digital employee experiences. And nearly half (49%) consider delivering a seamless digital experience most important in keeping their workforce engaged, surpassing traditional office perks such as happy hours (25%) and free coffee and snacks (14%).
Today, millennials and Gen Z employees make up about half of the global workforce, which is expected to grow to approximately 70% by 2030. Already, leaders say millennials (29%) and Gen Z (28%) are most demanding of IT’s time, over Gen X (19%) and baby boomers (9%). This trend will continue over the coming years.
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As new generations enter the workforce, 91% of decision makers believe they will need to provide more advanced digital experiences in the next five years, and 89% say it will put increased pressure on IT resources.