Verizon UC and CX study finds major disconnect between management and employees

What you need to know:

• Business decision makers (BDMs) twice as likely as employees to say personal productivity (75% and 38%) and employee well-being (71% and 35%) had improved since the pre-COVID era
• Technology not seen as strategic investment by more than one third (36%) of BDMs, while outdated business systems and technology cited as barrier to success by nearly half of employees (49%)
• This “Organizational Myopia” leads to an over-inflated degree of optimism in the workplace that can impact an organization's success and personal productivity
• Verizon Business report explores the customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) challenges, goals and priorities organizations are facing and provides guidance on how to lead in the new workplace

NEW YORK, N.Y. - To better understand today’s post-pandemic workplace, Verizon Business today released survey findings from its global Unified Communications (UC) and Customer Experience (CX) tentpole research, conducted by Omdia. With responses from more than 1,100 business decision makers (BDMs), IT decision makers (ITDMs) and employees, the resulting “Time to Change the Way We Work” report uncovered a significant gap between perceptions of key business priorities for their organization in the new hybrid-work era.

“Leadership all too often falls into a trap of viewing the business through rose colored glasses, which can result in a disconnect between enterprise expectations and employee sentiment around the solutions and disciplines necessary to stay competitive and drive workplace transformation,” said Massimo Peselli, CRO, Global Enterprise and Public Sector, Verizon Business. “The more closely aligned business leaders and employees are, the more successful they will be transitioning during this period of ‘great experimentation.’ Verizon’s deep portfolio of UCC and CX solutions and expertise are purposefully designed to meet the needs of every customer, particularly those with diverse and hybrid workforces.”

Organizational Myopia Impacts Business Operations

The report found significant differences between how BDMs and employees view the workplace—a phenomenon we call “organizational myopia”, or corporate shortsightedness, with ITDMs somewhere in the middle. BDMs were around twice as likely as employees to say personal productivity (75% and 38%) and employee well-being (71% and 35%) had improved since the pre-COVID era. But the greatest gap was in customer satisfaction, with nearly three times as many BDMs (74%) seeing improvement versus just 25% of employees.

Employees and BDMs also differed on whether employees have the tools and the flexibility they need to work effectively wherever they are, with BDMs more likely than employees to say their organization provided them the tools and flexibility needed to succeed, such as:

• Contact center technology (87% of BDMs vs 67% of employees)
• Collaboration and communication technology (93% of BDMs vs 76% of employees)
• Business systems and technology (94% of BDMs vs 74% of employees)
• Flexibility to work wherever they are most productive (91% of BDMs vs 76% of employees)

Further compounding the issue, technology is not viewed as a strategic investment by more than one third (36%) of BDMs, while outdated business systems and technology are cited as barriers to success by nearly half of employees (49%). A major part of that disconnect lies within the contact center. With front line agents serving customers, lack of budget (35%), a lack of integration between different channel platforms (34%), and a lack of in-house skills (33%) were viewed as the most significant barriers to achieving successful outcomes—reflecting some parallels with the overall employee experience.

Bridging the Perception Gap with Workplace Redesign

Effective leadership requires organizations to continually learn from what is working and what isn’t, to engage all stakeholders in this learning process and to make the investments needed to succeed. It comes down to the people, the processes and the technology—and creating a workplace that ensures employees receive a positive experience from recruitment to retirement.

Ultimately, businesses need to approach the employee experience (EX) with the same care that they approach the customer experience (CX). Frontline workers and contact center agents have been largely underserved by modern technology and services. By ensuring they are key stakeholders in identifying the needs of customers and agents, and that they are fully included in the decision-making process, this can change. This is not the case in 72% of organizations.

As a leader in the communication, collaboration and customer experience space, Verizon is uniquely positioned to help our customers create new models within their workplaces that are designed to support both the business and the employees.

For the full findings highlighting gaps between how business decision makers, IT decision makers and employees view the workplace and the tools they use, download the full report. Learn more about how Verizon’s Cloud Contact Center Solutions can support your business transformation today.