Technology instrumental to driving employee experience: Lenovo-Intel study

Organizations' IT departments and the technologies they offer are instrumental to driving employee experience (EX), beyond conventional factors such as human resources, worker benefits and more, says a new Lenovo and Intel commissioned study.

The study "Empower Your Employees with the Right Technology" conducted by Forrester Consulting sheds light on how updating technology can elevate team engagement, customer satisfaction and the bottom line of an organization.

Forrester surveyed 1,014 IT decision-makers at global enterprises responsible for IT purchasing decisions and end-user computer strategy, 1,845 global full-time workers and nine global key decision-makers in nine countries including China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the UK and the US.

Key findings of the study include:

• IT leaders are reporting a 5x return (USD1 spent on these programs yields USD5 of increased staff productivity, organizational agility and customer satisfaction), with many expecting to increase their investment by nearly 25 percent in two years.
• While IT decision-makers (ITDMs) are upgrading devices, software and services as part of EX initiatives, employees still report that they're frustrated with their PC hardware and software experience with 50 percent of the study respondents saying their PC devices are out of date or insufficient (e.g. not fast enough, reliable enough or powerful enough).
• ITDMs and employees both define employee satisfaction with technology as a crucial goal. Nearly 60 percent of IT leaders noted a more than 10 percent increase in EX scores by improving employee satisfaction with technology.
• Disconnect between employees and ITDMs: 84 percent of ITDMs believe employees can easily switch to a different PC device if their current one needs to be replaced, only half of the employees agree that's an available solution.

"Our new study findings further affirm our belief in the strategic importance of technology as critical investments, and not as simple transaction costs. The right deployment of technologies delivering returns can far exceed the initial expense of new business models and opportunities," said Christian Teismann, President, Commercial PC and Smart Devices Business, Lenovo.

Further, the study outlines a few recommendations for business leaders on how they can drive employee engagement and business outcomes via technology investments. It includes:

• Realigning investments to focus first on immediate employee priorities while exploring more advanced technology tools in parallel
• ITDMs should reorganize prioritizes to focus on improving EX instead of just focusing only on specific productivity metrics
• A renewed focus on PCs can make the greatest impact on the bottom line and customer satisfaction, with most respondents agreeing that PC devices are critical to increasing customer satisfaction (69 percent), revenue growth (62 percent) and employee retention (55 percent).
• Collaborate more closely with employees on IT purchase decisions can go a long way towards making the case for better technology options.