From Digital Experience (DX) to Employee Experience (EX), how COVID-19 changed things in the Workplace

What we went through?

When we talk about the current and future workplace evolution, the employee experience, and how workers’ needs have evolved, we have to talk about what we went through during the last couple of years.

The coronavirus was identified in December 2019 from an outbreak in Wuhan. Things have been more than challenging over the last three years, and some of us have endured tough times. But during that period, we also realized how resilient, patient, flexible, and creative we can all be! Work-related things have also been challenging with supply chains on hold, kids homeschooled, canceled public transportation, etc...

I don’t need to explain things further as you have been there too. The least we can say is that the planets needed to be aligned to keep things moving in the right direction.

And by surprise, with the silent white noise of lockdowns, we have been launched five days a week into this new long-awaited era of “fully remote”. Some started their working days in pajamas; others drank their last sip of coffee while homeschooling kids, and, in most cases, most of us switched on computers at a time when we would not have even left home for work before that.

Yet, despite all of those challenges, things kept on moving forward. We created possibilities out of the impossible. From one day to the other, we jumped into morning stand-ups mimicking physical coffee chats and celebrated improvised virtual corporate Christmas parties while having the chance to be close to the ones we love at home every day.

Where are we now?

Let’s not be naive. Things have left some critical marks regarding our soft skills, willingness to return to the office, and desire not to waste time in overpacked public transportation. Most studies around the hybrid workplace have an average of 75% of respondents feeling more productive at home than at the office and who would like to work from home at least three days a week. It is a sentiment that I share. And I know that most of you do too!

Additionally, every day that passes is a testimony to a new world, where we learn that women, gen-z, and visible minorities would prefer to stay home, feeling safer about it. So, how can we all be equal in a hybrid world? What is really at stake? Is it only about sending millions of lost souls daily into the subway, just for the pleasure of doing it?

The short answer to that question is obviously no.

Where we used to focus historically on digital experiences (DX), we now zoom in daily on the post-pandemic employee experience (EX) and start discussions around the workplace metaverse. From DX to EX! European startups get funded over lunch, and corporate companies have acknowledged the above employee surveys, trying to respond quickly with some flexibility.

Besides companies like Twitter or Meta, talent retention is central to those discussions.

On top of this, real-estate rationalization is often an essential topic for most companies seduced by this cost-saving goal that speaks to leadership. If you knew that X percent of your expenditures could be “wasted money,” wouldn’t you act on this to establish a company goal? I would, and I am sure you would too.

Where do we go from here?

In 2023, where things will most probably be challenging on the real estate side of things is to whom companies will be able to sell their empty buildings, considering that most players in the industry will repurpose too and be cautious not to invest heavily in office spaces post-pandemic.

In the last three years, many startups have jumped into this niche market of hybrid-work solutions, understanding the needs and the business opportunities. Those companies had enough lucidity to bet that this would probably not be our last pandemic and that the workplace would change forever. Sad, realistic statement on one side, but a proactive attitude on the other. It is not necessarily about how we adjust today but how we respond to the next pandemic! Have we collectively learned enough, and will we remember the learnings more importantly when the time comes?

Who is doing what?

We can name Café, Robin, or Deskbird as some startups leading the discussion around digital workplace applications. However, if those products are well designed and provide precisely what you are looking for, we cannot forget to mention Microsoft Places. This last piece, announced at the end of 2022 by Microsoft, could be released in 2023 and will be the cherry on top of the cake, offering promising functionalities, a clean desirable UI, and enterprise integration.

But will all of this be enough? And more importantly, will Microsoft Places not arrive too late in companies that will have developed custom solutions or chosen digital startup products? You tell me below!

What does that mean for us?

As we usually say, in Life, everything is good in moderation. So, while I do not deny but applaud this needed, long-awaited hybrid workplace transformation, I also acknowledge that it might have happened too fast, and we all collectively dived into that remote chocolate box too quickly.

Most of us have been seduced by the remote offer. But to be honest, we will probably need to embrace the hybrid model to stay home, save time, and jump into the office only when required. Nothing will beat a morning smile, a coffee with colleagues, a productive face-to-face workshop, lunch with the team, and a fantastic after-work event at the pub occasionally. So yes, we will need to sacrifice this precious time we have re-acquired, use our cars, and jump back into trains! Probably not five days a week, but one or two days per week, to start with will be good enough.

What does that mean for companies?

Companies will need to re-adjust their offices and how they welcome employees once a real estate rationalization has been completed. If a tool centralizes office attendance, smoothing will be required. For example, if everyone skips Mondays and Fridays to pick office days out of the three remaining ones, will the on-site experience match the employee expectations with over-packed floors, noisy side calls, difficulties finding a flex desk, etc.? Things will probably need to be adjusted with algorithm recommendations to re-route user intents and manage the office attendance on five days per week, not three.

Whether companies use an early adopter startup application, a good GAFAM offer, or a homemade digital solution, this digital workplace product will need to be a hub capable of connecting with meeting rooms, calendars, and maybe floor sensors. This tool could also be a community lounge for employees to connect with colleagues on-site and mingle. It could also be where employees organize car-pooling digitally to reduce their carbon footprints, inform others that they will soon unplug their EVs at the garage, and, more importantly, indicate to all users that they plan to come to the office on a specific given day.

A tool to work better together. A tool for people to feel better at the office. A tool for all the employees to feel part of the company, improve their sense of belonging, and include those who chose to stay home on that day.

This exercise will also be the right moment for companies to do or re-do an accessibility assessment and connect the dots between physical & virtual without missing some key internal audiences.

What does that mean for the next generation?

While Elon Musk ended Twitter’s work-from-home policy this month, upsetting many, some European countries are beginning to enshrine remote working as a right.

In the future, we can ask ourselves if this will give the old continent a competitive advantage in gaining talent from generation alpha and the following ones or if this will create an unmotivated, disconnected workforce lacking the social interactions needed to evolve, shine, and be happy at work.

What we have learned from this pandemic and what we will make of it will be up to us to transform our physical & digital workplaces, adopt new ways of working, and create an inclusive hybrid model where people will have the ability to shine every day!

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