In an industry-first survey of the digital workplace and remote employee experience post-COVID, endpoint management leaders 1E found that enterprises are ill-equipped to support remote workers as the world shifts from office-based to anywhere-based and announces its virtual ‘Work From Anywhere Conference 2020’ for July 29-30

London, UK — Conducted during the coronavirus pandemic, 1E unveils the findings of the industry’s largest analysis of the remote employee experience and the digital workplace in 2020.

In partnership with independent research agency Vanson Bourne, 1E surveyed employees across eight industries in the United States and found that enterprise IT teams are failing to deliver a positive remote employee experience. Data shows IT has more to do in order to prepare their organizations—and employees—for a work from anywhere enterprise in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Never before have we had this level of insight about the experience employees have with their devices—and IT generally—in the post-COVID world. In the work from anywhere enterprise, endpoint management tools are the central nervous system because the endpoint is no longer just a device. Endpoints have now become much more personal and integral to the lives of all employees, enabling them to stay connected and work. This research helps businesses understand the new digital employee experience and reimagine the traditional definition of the workplace,” says 1E Founder and CEO Sumir Karayi.

46m Americans are now totally dependent on their laptop—but they’re dealing with an influx of issues crippling the digital employee experience
At its heart, the digital work from anywhere enterprise is about putting people first and serving their needs wherever they choose to work, but the data from 1E’s latest research ‘The New Digital Workplace: Employee Experiences with Universal Remote Working Since COVID’ indicates that IT teams, along with over-burdened and ill-equipped service desks, are struggling to meet the needs of newly remote employees.

Since the start of the pandemic, 46m people have moved from working in the office on a full-time basis to working from home full-time. That’s a significant amount of people forced into new ways of working overnight and who are totally reliant on their laptop for work and communication.

“IT must be able to understand and optimize the employee’s world through the endpoint. But what the research shows is that the speed of change has left legacy IT tools ineffective in their management of remote endpoints and the digital employee experience. This research proves that legacy tools must be replaced with a new generation of endpoint management solutions designed to cope with the complexities of the work from anywhere enterprise; they need to be real-time, autonomic, and scalable,” Karayi concludes.

US employees take huge productivity hit when working remotely as 50m experience repeat IT issues—and then wait hours, days, and weeks for those issues to be resolved
Almost all US knowledge workers (98%) said that device performance is critical to their ability to work remotely but 36m (53%) reported that their device performs slower outside the office and 33m (48%) flagged it as a top three issue that hinders their productivity and overall employee experience.

25m employees (37%) are also experiencing more issues working remotely, and those issues are taking much longer to resolve. 49m employees (72%) are reporting that it takes days and weeks to get issues fixed. Yet more worryingly, 50m employees (74%) experience repeat issues.

But when issues are resolved, 46m employees (68%) are disrupted by the service desk, with only 21m (31%) of employees able to continue their work during the process. Shockingly, 18m employees (26%) said they couldn’t work at all when an issue is being fixed. Needless to say, 50m (74% of employees) are feeling less connected than ever to their colleagues.

“Too often we only ask IT about IT issues. What’s refreshing about this research is that employees took part and were asked how they’re coping in this new normal. The data shows how critical endpoint automation is so employees can just get their work done,” says Paul Hardy, Evangelist, Chief Innovation Office, at ServiceNow.

“The fact that 74% of employees are facing repeat issues proves that a lack of automation doesn’t just impact the employee experience, but further burdens the service desk and holds organizations back from creating meaningful value and growth,” comments Hardy. “The reality is that COVID has ripped up the enterprise IT book, and it’s time to use research such as this to rewrite the norm.”

The work from anywhere enterprise and the remote employee experience beyond 2020
As well as the employee experience, the research has also found other issues for IT to deal with on the journey to a work from anywhere enterprise. Most damagingly, security (50m or 73% of respondents aren’t concerned about their corporate device being hacked when working remotely) and software provisioning (24m or 35% of respondents don’t have all the software they need to work from home effectively).

Work From Anywhere Enterprise Conference 2020
In support of its latest research, 1E has also announced its virtual ‘Work From Anywhere Enterprise Conference 2020’ with ServiceNow, Forrester, Microsoft, NTT DATA, and Dion Hinchcliffe of Constellation Research all set to appear across July 29 & 30. Bringing together industry leaders in endpoint management, digital experience monitoring, and ITSM, the conference will unpick the research and help enterprises use the insights to build their work from anywhere IT strategy in 2020 and beyond. You can read the full research report here.

About 1E
1E offers the only real-time remote endpoint management solution that helps IT deliver an unparalleled employee experience. Giving IT teams total control and visibility over all remote endpoints, Tachyon offers in-depth analytics to understand and improve the experience employees have with their endpoints. It delivers proactive issue identification and resolution at scale, service desk optimization with integration into ServiceNow, self-serve and self-heal capabilities, as well as real-time security and compliance monitoring and remediation. Tachyon is a vital tool in the enterprise’s quest to support remote working at scale, deliver exceptional employee experiences, and transform into a truly digital workplace. www.1E.com

About Vanson Bourne
Vanson Bourne is an independent specialist in market research for the technology sector. Their reputation for robust and credible research-based analysis is founded upon rigorous research principles and their ability to seek the opinions of senior decision makers across technical and business functions, in all business sectors and all major markets. 1E and Vanson Bourne surveyed 300 knowledge workers in the United States across eight industries (retail, distribution, transport; financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, public sector, IT, business and professional services, and other commercial sectors) during the coronavirus pandemic. The full data of this exercise is available in your press pack. To achieve broader macro statistics, 1E and Vanson Bourne data was augmented with freely available data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics where the number of knowledge workers can be pulled from their breakdowns at 68 million. www.vansonbourne.com