Employee Experience is for IT Service Provider Staff, Too

There’s no escaping the continuing march of employee experience in IT. Over the last few years, most IT organizations have recognized the importance of better meeting employee or end-user needs and focusing improvements on what matters most to them. They might not have yet invested in employee experience measurement (or digital employee experience (DEX) management) mechanisms to gain greater insight into how IT operations help or hinder these employees and business outcomes. But they are likely talking about it.

The IT organization is focusing more on the employees it serves through its IT service delivery and support capabilities, which must be a good thing. But what about the employees working in IT and their employee experience? 

IT orgs are focusing more on the employees it serves through its IT service delivery & support capabilities, which must be a good thing. But what about the employees working in IT & their employee experience? #servicedesk #ITSM #EX Share on X

IT employees and processes have long been the “cobbler’s children”

There’s a saying that “the cobbler’s children are the worst shod.” This “old English” means that the shoemaker’s children have the worst, or potentially no, shoes. Reflecting that we can be so focused on serving the needs of others that we forget, or never get around to, meeting the needs of those “closer to home.”

In the case of employee experience, it’s more than likely that IT organizations will be so focused on improving the experiences for the employees or end-users they serve that they’ll overlook the expectations and needs of IT staff. It first happened in the 1990s when IT organizations originally introduced business-enabling technology, and I predict that it will happen again with experience management if we aren’t careful.

Customer satisfaction questionnaires vs. employee satisfaction questionnaires

Employee satisfaction questionnaires are the traditional method for assessing how IT staff feel about their work and working environment. The latest HDI research – The State Of Technical Support In 2023 – has staff satisfaction as the fourth most commonly used IT service desk metric, so employee satisfaction is measured at least for IT service desk staff. 

However, these staff satisfaction surveys will likely suffer from many of the same issues as the customer satisfaction (CSAT) questionnaires IT employs. After all, they’re often created, circulated, and analyzed by the same people.

The issues with employee satisfaction questions could thus include:

• IT staff survey feedback requests are likely infrequent and aren’t necessarily made at the most appropriate times. Hence, they aren’t necessarily a true “pulse” of how IT staff feel.
• There are potentially low response rates, with IT staff worried about providing feedback criticizing the status quo (even anonymously).
• There’s likely response bias, with only the happiest and unhappiest team members providing feedback. So, a band of “meh” employees might never offer feedback on working in IT.
• Questions can often relate to the “mechanics” of working in IT, not how employees feel about their work and other areas that affect it, such as line management, relationships with other teams, and reward and recognition.
• Asking too many survey questions can create a barrier to survey completion.
• There’s a lack of visible action related to the previously received feedback that, in turn, prevents future feedback provision.

There might be other issues related to the use of employee satisfaction questionnaires. Still, the key point is whether the employee satisfaction surveys provide a suitable snapshot of the IT employee experience and how these employees feel about working in IT. 

Again, comparing the likelihood of staff satisfaction being a valuable employee experience measure to the CSAT position (which has brought about the need for focused employee experience metrics), the metric simply wasn’t designed to measure employee experiences. Instead, it’s usually focused on how well processes (whether related to IT operations or people management) work. Thus, the collected data can’t report what IT employees think about working in IT. It’s potentially dangerous for IT leadership to believe that it does – because many of the issues IT staff are experiencing will go unreported and unaddressed.

The impact of failing to measure and improve IT employee experiences

Hopefully, the above sections have opened your mind to the fact that your IT employees might need better employee experiences. Regarding what needs to change to improve experiences, it’s difficult to say without collecting experience-related feedback and data from your IT employees. 

This blog by @SysAid looks at the impact of failing to measure and improve IT employee experiences. #ITSM #servicedesk #EX Share on X

However, this might require some form of additional investment that, in turn, requires justification. One way to do this is to look at some of the visible indicators of employee experience issues. For IT staff, these indicators could be:

• Lower productivity levels for some team members
• Higher than expected levels of employee absenteeism compared to other business functions
• Low morale or well-being issues (if monitored)
• Higher than anticipated staff turnover levels
• Recruitment difficulties.

There might be other possible indicators available in your IT organization. Whatever they are, they’ll likely be important in starting the first step of experience improvement – understanding the current IT staff experiences. This will highlight what’s working well and what isn’t for employees and, importantly, what’s most important to them regarding improvement.If you want to learn more about improving the employee experiences of IT staff, please take a look at how SysAid can help.