AI job concerns

Ivanti has published the results of its 2023 Report: New Imperatives for Digital Employee Experience, which details how technology drives employee satisfaction, retention and productivity. Ivanti surveyed 7,800 IT professionals, executives and end users around the world, across a broad range of industries, to gauge their opinions on the current state and future of digital employee experience (DEX) – including how they believe the advancement in AI has and will impact employees. 

While many IT workers see the productivity benefits of AI, 56% believe it benefits employers more than employees. Additionally, 63% are concerned generative AI tools might take their job in the next five years compared to 44% of office workers. Interestingly, when office workers need IT for a problem, they prefer to have a human on the other end, adding to IT's workload. When asked about leveraging a chatbot/automation that is as helpful as using a human, 58% still preferred human interaction. In short, IT professionals and employees aren’t sold on AI quite yet, so it is up to executives to address their employees’ fears and allocate resources to advance DEX. 

The report revealed that inadequate DEX practices are much more than a tech problem for knowledge workers:  

•       78% say they could be more productive with different tools. 

•       57% report serious friction at least weekly while using workplace technology. 

•       17% have either quit due to poor tech or would consider it — and the figure is nearly 2x as high for Gen Z. 

•       61% say negative technology experiences impact morale. 

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“Organizations globally are grappling with how to optimize Digital Employee Experience (DEX) for the entire workforce,” said Jeff Abbott, Ivanti CEO. “Best-in-class organizations view DEX as a powerful tool to improve accessibility, employee retention and the security of their organization. However, with the rapid progress of AI and automation, the real DEX opportunity is for organizations to enhance employee productivity, speed, and value creation with the best possible IT solution platform.” 

Notably, IT professionals who are tasked with implementing DEX in the organization don’t always reap the benefits of it. While the vast majority of IT professionals (84%) want to continue to work remotely at least some of the time, they’re also significantly more likely to experience a wide range of technology problems at work compared to other office workers. Among the IT workers we surveyed:  

•       85% spend at least part of their week at home, yet over a quarter (27%) say their tech tools are not as effective when working remotely. 

•       39% report too many logins, 47% report too many digital notifications and 42% report too many tools/platforms required as a tech problem they experience at work. 

•       One in five say they don’t have full visibility into which workplace applications employees use.