Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

Everyone knows that automation is set to have a profound impact on the world of work in the coming years. Often called the ‘fourth industrial revolution,’ the impact is widely expected to be as profound as the industrial revolution itself. Just as mechanical systems replaced the works of human hands in the 19th century, artificial intelligence is expected to significantly supplant human brainpower in the 21st century, with equally profound impact on our personal and professional lives.

To say that things have changed since March 2020 is so commonplace it’s becoming trite. Everybody knows that people have worked from home where possible. HR and IT functions have dovetailed as never before. The HR personnel are therefore likely to be working from home, but they have an additional pressure: they are supporting, and their managers are managing, teams they can’t see.

As reported by Forrester in Q4, 2020, nearly a dozen technology vendors are riding a new wave of End-User Experience Management (EUEM) in IT right now—an exciting, emerging market that directly benefits IT departments and the employees they support.

The top priority of a typical IT team has remained relatively unchanged for decades: provide support for employees and make their user experiences as smooth as possible. With that being said, the actual workflow of an IT team looks nothing like it did years ago — because the way employees work on a day-to-day basis has drastically changed.

“What’s that? You want me to send you a large video file or something? No, that’s not a problem, it’s actually easy, I’ll just stick it on Box. Or DropBox, or stick it on WeTransfer and then we’ll do a quick Zoom to go through it – what?

A lot of very good writing from some reliable commentators has been suggesting that organizations have been forced into a digital-first environment. Covid has been the enforcer and business and public sector alike have adapted to having a distributed workforce by putting the infrastructure in where there were gaps. This is OK as far as it goes but it’s not quite right. The best organizations have not gone ‘digital-first’.

The events of 2020 — from the pandemic to the resulting mass quarantines — have been one of the most impactful societal events of this century. Nearly overnight, it has relegated hundreds of millions of workers to their homes, likely through much of 2021 and perhaps beyond.

IT leaders and decision makers certainly feel the impact of the pandemic, but for these past few months they haven’t been able to form any coherent narrative on what they are experiencing. Until now. Teaming up Pulse, an independent technology research firm, we recently surveyed 142 enterprise technology executives to understand how they have been handling their Digital Employee Experience (DEX) since the pandemic, what problems still persist, and where their focus is for 2021.

Under intense competitive pressure for customers and employees alike, most businesses today are pursuing aggressive digital transformation strategies. IDC predicted that nearly US $1.3 trillion was spent worldwide on digital transformation technologies – namely hardware, software, and services – in 2018, and tips that figure to nearly double in 2021 to reach more than US $2.1 trillion.

If you’ve ever started a new job, you know what a whirlwind those first few days and weeks can feel like. A new job means meeting new faces, learning new processes, familiarizing yourself with new and unfamiliar technology, and discovering what new challenges you’ll be facing for the foreseeable future. It can all be quite overwhelming — particularly at companies that don’t offer top-of-the-line employee onboarding programs.