Insights from the Gartner® Digital Workplace Summit 2024 in London
Partnerships, governance, and digital dexterity were big themes at the Gartner Digital Workplace Summit in London June 10-11. Generative AI was (of course!) threaded through every talk and conversation over two days as speakers and attendees explored ways to boost the digital employee experience (DEX) and empower a thriving workforce.
Our session with the University of Oxford – How a 900-year-old institution is defining the future of communication – focused on how they’ll be using Appspace to connect its campus community. Stay tuned for more on that.
In the meantime, here are a few of our insights from the conference:
The rise of digital dexterity is empowering employees – but there’s a gap
Employees today aren’t just technology users – they’re becoming technologists in their own right.
According to the 2022 Gartner Digital Worker SurveyTM, 51% of workers customize, build, or buy tools to collaborate or analyze data. This trend highlights the growing role in organizations of what Gartner VP Analyst Tori Paulman calls “citizen developers” and “citizen data scientists”.
Paulman argues that digitally empowering employees strengthens engagement, improves satisfaction, and improves retention.
According to Gartner research, 90% of employees say that intuitive and effective technology positively impacts their job satisfaction, and 91% believe that improving their digital dexterity enhances their work effectiveness.
By 2027, Gartner predicts that “organizations that promote digital dexterity enablement for both managers and employees will have stronger revenue growth year over year than those who have not.”
But Gen AI’s relentless pace of change is widening the digital dexterity gap, making continuous learning and adaptation necessary.
Developing skills in prompt engineering, which Gartner VP Analyst Darin Stewart described as “an art,” is just one way to help close the digital dexterity gap.
Democratized AI needs good governance
Gen AI can be “a liar with good grammar”, according to Paulman, or “a fancy sentence completer”, says Stewart.
Verification and validation are the watchwords here.
The advent of democratized AI means powerful tools are now accessible to a broader range of employees. For all the power that brings, there are plenty of examples of AI-enabled searches surfacing confidential documents and information.
One thing’s for sure: There’s work to do regarding AI governance. Gartner estimates that 70% of the workforce is using AI, but less than 20% are doing so through authorized tools.
The answer isn’t to ban the use of AI but to implement clear governance strategies. They recommend mandatory training and a “distrust and verify” approach to AI-generated content.
The power of co-creation and change management
It’s not just caution around the technology that’s hampering efforts to successfully integrate Gen AI across organizations. Organizational silos are a real issue.
It’s clear that IT has moved way beyond being a support function but that’s not always recognized. This is where DEX leaders step in. They play a crucial role in driving positive change by bridging the gap between IT and other business areas. They bring together business leaders and innovators to ensure tech solutions meet the needs of employees and support broader company goals.
Companies with a DEX leader are adopting AI twice as fast as those without, emphasizing the strategic importance of having dedicated leadership in this area and across business functions like HR and Communications. Involving employees in the change process can increase the chances of success by 14 times, according to industry research.
Keep an eye on your ROE (return on employee)
Workplace technology can be a powerful driver of change, boosting productivity and innovation. But the advantages aren’t just for companies. Employees benefit too.
Matt Cain, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, emphasized that while AI can save time, it’s important to be realistic about how that saved time is used.
Cain pointed out that the metric of ‘time saved’ by using AI tools should be viewed with caution (people often overestimate it) as well as holistically: if just 50% of time saved through using Gen AI goes back into productive organizational use, the other 50% can benefit employees directly, allowing for improved work-life balance for example. This is why monitoring your return on employee (ROE) is crucial.
Ultimately, the digital workplace is about more than gadgets and software. It’s about empowering people to collaborate and achieve greater success together.
