Editorial
In a noisy world, silence is powerful. Silence helps you focus and is even proven to lower your heart rate and blood pressure. That’s why I’m so excited about a new paradigm that’s emerging — the rise of “quiet” or “invisible” IT. Invisible IT is technology that works seamlessly in the background, without drawing attention to itself, disrupting people’s lives or interfering with everyday tasks.
Making IT an 'Afterthought for Employees'
The most effective IT teams quietly diagnose issues before users even notice a problem, employ self-healing hardware and other advanced technologies, and prioritize user expectations. As I wrote before, the ultimate goal of IT isn’t to fix things faster, “it’s to make IT an afterthought for employees. Technology should work so smoothly that employees don’t even think about it.”
Turning IT from a reactive function into an ambient capability requires a foundational, intentional shift. This isn’t easy, especially when only roughly half of employees feel like companies care about their new technology needs, according to research from PWC. However, companies that lead the way can achieve lower mean time to resolution (MTTR), reduced downtime, increased productivity, fewer help desk tickets and higher employee retention.
How to Go Further with Quiet IT
If you’ve already taken steps to make your IT less intrusive, you’re well on your way. Here are a few of the most effective tactics we’ve seen in leading organizations:
Enhance Data Visibility
Ironically, making IT invisible starts with getting more visibility into your entire digital estate. After all, it's tough to solve problems you can’t see. Real-time telemetry data from endpoints can identify a range of potential issues such as network disruptions, Wi-Fi signal strength, low disk space and battery health. Thanks to low-cost sensors and other technologies, we now see the rise of ambient intelligence, which provides insights into the location and status of various objects.
Use AI and Proactive IT to Remove Barriers
Nearly 90% of IT tickets are for simple issues such as password resets, according to a global IT research report. Fortunately, these types of L1 and L2 issues “can be resolved easily with automation or self-service tools.” With early detection and proactive IT, you can take corrective action and eliminate potential issues, often before users even notice.
Think of it as a shift from firefighting to foresight to minimize business disruptions and deliver a seamless digital employee experience. Want proof? Consider the financial services organization that used sensor-based automations to prevent more than 200,000 tickets per month. That’s the power of invisible IT.
AI helps you to do even more to keep things on track, through AI-driven anomaly detection and self-healing technology that assists users to resolve issues instantly without needing to contact the help desk. That’s one reason why more than 90% of organizations have deployed or plan to deploy AI-enabled endpoints, according to a recent research report from Enterprise Strategy Group. AI-powered automations also dramatically enhance the IT experience for your silent sufferers — the 40% of employees who typically don’t report tech issues.
Make DEX Measurable and Actionable
Top organizations quantify digital friction by analyzing telemetry data and tracking their digital employee experience (DEX). As PWC notes, “When you don’t have a clear and accurate understanding of how your people use technology in their jobs, and what they need and want from those tools, their overall experience at work can suffer.” Half of digital workplace leaders expect to have a DEX strategy and tool in place by next year, according to Gartner's research — a significant increase from just a few years ago.
DEX scores are valuable because they typically reflect whether your tech experience is seamless and invisible, or if it’s frustrating employees in their day-to-day work. Beyond streamlining IT, DEX scores can also highlight potential issues with your customer experience (especially in industries where front-line employees use technology to serve customers) and can help you improve retention, given that employees who are unhappy with their technology are more likely to quit.
Use Personas to Deliver a User-Centric Experience
Making IT invisible isn’t the same for everyone in your organization. Your HR team has different tech needs than your traveling sales reps, for example. That’s why organizations use personas to map out representations of typical users in specific groups, to understand their tech-related pain points better, and then make these issues invisible to the users.
You can define user personas in various ways, including by technology needs (power users vs. light users), department or role, or work environment. Common persona-based approaches include streamlining hardware and software so users don’t have more than they need, and ensuring they have enough IT support to resolve their most common issues quickly.
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IT may never be completely invisible, but following these steps will deliver ongoing benefits for your employees, your IT team and enterprise-wide efficiency.
Editor's Note: Read more about the importance of digital employee experience:
- A Blueprint That Binds: The First Principle of Digital Employee Experience — A reference architecture is foundational for DEX. This practical framework guides tech purchases and integration decisions. Here's how to build yours.
- Digital Employee Experience Transformation Isn't Just About Efficiency — Sure, you can tweak a system for efficiency… but if people really hate the experience, it’s not going to stick.
- You Need to Improve Your Digital Employee Experience. Do You Have the Resources? — It's critical that we help employees be more efficient, and improving their digital employee experience (DEX) is the best way to tackle this.
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