Inside Our Ongoing Conversation with IT Users: Technology Is Only Part of the Experience—Part 2

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In Part 1 of this blog, I told you about the importance of listening to users and not just assuming their needs can be met by deploying the latest technology. However, listening and acting on demands are only the beginning of maintaining a successful unified workforce experience. Being responsive to user feedback also means regularly measuring their sentiment. What’s more, even the most tailored array of capabilities won’t make users happy if they don’t work.

Here are my insights on those important lessons learned from our ongoing conversations with our team members, along with more do’s and don’ts.

The System You Have in Place Has to Work, Period

It doesn’t matter what you promise and roll out for new tools, what you have now has to work.

At the end of Q2 FY2020, we saw technology scores for each of our services increase, but overall our user sentiment score dropped. We quickly realized users were reacting to network outages which impacted email, Skype, Zoom, conferencing and remote connectivity.

The bottom line is as much as you want to focus on new technology, the first foundational element of your workforce transformation has to be keeping what you have today working. What’s more, if people need help when it doesn’t work, you need to give them best-in-class support.

If you don’t have excellent service with good empathy, communication, speed and accuracy, it is very hard to improve your user sentiment score. Becoming service-centric and user-centric is a core component of workforce transformation.

In our case, Pulse scores bore out that fact. We have been heavily focused over the past four years on creating a service culture, aligning our service desk with our Team Member Experience (TMX) organization and making sure every support organization member is on the same page. We have also continued to roll out Tech Centrals, campus help centers around globe where team members can walk in and speak directly with our technicians.

Our IT services delivery teams consistently get the highest scores for user sentiment.

Keep Measuring and Transforming

Since user sentiment is clearly critical to making the right choices in shaping the IT experience we provide to our unified workforce, I can’t overemphasize the need to have a robust measurement system in place to put your confidence in.

If you don’t, then you are running blind. You’re in danger of taking actions and assuming they are going to improve things without really knowing.

You should begin the process with two kinds of measurement of your IT experience—the sentiment of your user base and a calibration of where you are today in terms of technology. While we did our own technology calibration, Dell Technologies offers such assessments allowing you to understand your current technology footprint and prerequisites required for you to adopt Dell Technologies Unified Workspace (DTUW).

For instance, if you want to deploy Workspace One, you need to look at your legacy environment, what technologies are at play, and the need to upgrade any of those technologies needed to use Workspace One and move to modern provisioning.

Design the sentiment survey around your specific needs. Be sure to conduct it on a regular basis; I suggest quarterly. That sentiment as-is picture becomes the foundation for your to-be vision of what you want your future experience to be for your team members.

Our measurement efforts helped us identify our pain points and decide the sequence in which we want to unlock DTUW capabilities. For us, standardizing our mobile device management (MDM) was a top priority as well as being able to publish our Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications across all managed devices.

Some Do’s and Don’ts

We are continuing to communicate and listen as we pursue our unified workforce transformation. Meanwhile, here are a few more insights that might help you in your journey.

  1. Don’t wait until you have a plan in place for everything before beginning your transformation. Find what your pain points are, decide what’s doable and get started.
  2. Do communicate early and often with your infrastructure and cybersecurity team to make sure you have alignment for your vision. They are critical to meeting your commitment to users.
  3. Don’t forget that you need to address people, process and technology as an IT organization and cannot rely on that silver bullet tool to make users happy.

Summary

A successful unified workforce transformation relies on your current systems running effectively, delivering best-in-class support (service-centric), regularly measuring user feedback and being responsive to their sentiment (user-centric). Lastly, I invite you to follow my three Do’s and Don’ts, three lessons learned, to further hone your transformation journey.

How effective has your company’s unified workforce transformation been in measuring and responding to the sentiment of your user base and calibrating where you are today in terms of technology?

About the Author: Pat Quigley

Pat Quigley is a 20+ year IT veteran – a geek who thrives on change – passionate about creating a dynamic and collaborative workplace where team members can work seamlessly from anywhere, anytime, on any device. Pat is vice president of the 900+ person Dell Digital Team Member Experience (TMX) organization that is driving workforce transformation across Dell Technologies. He is also a recreational cyclist and avid oarsman who thrives on the work-life balance made possible by these modern solutions.
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