Will almost half of all office workers in the world quit if their employers cannot supply technology to ease hybrid working?

In a global survey of 8,000 office workers, 1,600 IT business professionals and 800 C-level managers in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Japan, China and Australia regarding how technology impacts productivity and employee experience, conflicting viewpoints were observed between IT, employees and corporate leaders when addressing the future of hybrid/remote-work and how well technology was doing in smoothing the employee experience.

The survey results showed that 49% of respondents (employees) had indicated they were frustrated by the tech and tools their organization provided, and 64% believed that the way they interacted with technology directly impacted morale.

In particular:

  • 26% of respondents (office workers) were considering quitting their jobs because they lacked suitable tech. Also, 42% had spent their own money on better tech to work more productively, and 65% believed they would be more productive if they had better technology at their disposal.
  • 13% of knowledge workers in the survey preferred to work exclusively from the office, while 56% of CXOs felt that employees needed to be in the office to be productive. Additionally, 74% of C-Suite respondents indicated they were more productive since the start of the pandemic, suggesting the existence of conflicting views between C-Suite, IT and employees regarding the dynamics of implementing hybrid work.
  • 62% of C-Suite respondents indicated that leadership prioritized profitability over employee experience, while 21% of IT respondents considering the ‘end user experience’ to be the main priority when selecting new tools.
  • Top challenges reported by office workers in the survey included:
    • too many emails or chat messages (28%)
    • lack of connection to coworkers (27%)
    • software not working properly (23%)

Despite this, all groups in the survey indicated being more productive in the era of hybrid work , suggesting that productivity depended not so much on the place of work but on the experience that they had when interacting via the technology that facilitates remote-working.

  • 32% of IT professionals in the survey still used spreadsheets to track the growing variety of devices and networks to facilitate hybrid work.
  • 49% of C-level executives in the survey indicated they had requested to bypass one or more security measures in the last year

According to Jeff Abbott, CEO, Ivanti, which commissioned the survey: How employees interact with technology—and their satisfaction with that experience—directly relates to the success and value they deliver to the organization.

Maintaining a secure environment and focusing on the digital employee experience are two inseparable elements of any digital transformation. In the war for talent, a key differentiator for organizations is providing an exceptional and secure digital experience.