How to measure digital employee experience

September 25, 2025 by Nicole Carter

Introduction

Digital employee experience (DEX) is no longer a side issue tucked away within IT or internal communications. It is one of the core factors shaping how people feel at work and how effectively they can perform. For many organizations, since the rise of hybrid and remote working, the digital workplace is the workplace. It’s where communication happens, collaboration unfolds and core business processes get done.

However, despite its centrality, DEX often remains poorly measured. Leaders talk about wanting to ‘improve employee experience’ but lack the data to prove what is actually happening day to day. Are employees frustrated by the tools provided? Are investments in collaboration platforms making people more productive? Is poor findability quietly eroding hours of working time? Without measurement, these questions remain unanswered – and investment decisions risk being driven more by assumptions than evidence.

Measuring DEX is about turning the invisible into the visible. It gives leaders the confidence that new tools are worth funding, helps digital workplace teams know whether they are on the right track and, most importantly, ensures employees benefit from smoother, more human, digital environments.

In this article, we will explore: why measurement matters; how to set meaningful key performance indicators (KPIs); how to link them to return on investment (ROI); the practical steps for putting measurement into practice; and some challenges you should expect along the way.

Why measurement matters

At its heart, measurement is about accountability. Leaders want to know that budget spent on digital platforms, intranet redesigns and collaboration suites translate into outcomes that matter.

A recent Ivanti report found that 97% of executives believe improved DEX drives productivity, yet more than half of employees still report daily frustration with workplace technology (Ivanti, 2023). This mismatch highlights why measurement is essential. Leaders may sense the importance of DEX, but employees live its reality – and that reality can be very different from the intended design.

Measurement also acts as a safeguard against ‘tool proliferation’. It is all too easy to launch yet another app or platform, in the hope that it will fix an engagement or productivity problem. Without data, the success of such launches is often judged by superficial adoption figures, such as how many licences were issued or how many people logged in during the first month. But adoption is not the same as value. A digital workplace filled with poorly connected tools can actively increase frustration. By measuring experience and outcomes, teams can cut through the noise and focus on what genuinely helps.

Finally, measurement provides the evidence needed to make the case for ongoing investment. Technology budgets are under scrutiny in most organizations. Demonstrating the link between DEX and tangible business results – from retention to customer satisfaction – helps secure funding and raises the profile of digital workplace teams as strategic enablers, not just service providers.

Setting the right KPIs

The question is not whether to measure DEX, but what to measure. Too often, organizations fall back on what is easy to count: logins, page views, number of Teams messages sent. These indicators have some value, but they are lagging measures of activity rather than leading indicators of experience.

A more rounded DEX KPI set should balance technical performance, behavioural data and employee perception. For example:

Adoption and reach: Not just the number of licences issued, but the percentage of employees actively using tools at least weekly.
Engagement depth: Metrics that reflect participation and contribution, such as commenting on intranet articles, contributing to discussions, or creating knowledge assets.
Findability and task success: First-time search success rates, or the average time to complete key tasks (e.g. booking leave, finding policies).
Efficiency indicators: Time saved on processes, reduced duplication of documents, or lower cycle times for approvals.
Employee sentiment: Pulse surveys asking employees how easy tools are to use, whether they trust content, and whether digital friction is impacting their day.
Support load: Volume of IT tickets, mean time to resolution and percentage resolved via self-service.
Experience scores: Some organizations now adopt a DEX Score, combining system performance data with survey results to create a single view (TeamViewer, 2024).

It is also useful to distinguish between leading indicators (signals of whether the environment is set up for success, such as page load times or availability of single sign-on) and lagging indicators (outcomes like satisfaction or productivity gains). Both are needed as the former helps prevent problems whilst the latter shows impact.

The choice of KPIs will depend on the organization’s context. A frontline-heavy workforce may prioritize mobile access and shift-scheduling efficiency, while a professional services firm might focus more on collaboration depth and knowledge reuse. The key is to choose metrics that reflect how people actually work and not just how tools are deployed.

Turning KPIs into ROI

Even well-chosen KPIs can struggle to gain traction unless they are connected to outcomes that matter to leadership. This is where ROI comes in.

Consider these common value pathways:

Lower IT costs: A fall in support ticket volumes or quicker resolution times have a direct cost benefit. For example, if each ticket costs £25 to resolve and volumes drop by 2,000 per year, that is a £50,000 saving.

Productivity improvements: Cutting minutes off routine processes adds up quickly. One analysis found that context switching (moving between different apps) consumes significant mental energy and time. Reducing friction through better integration can reclaim hours per employee per week.

Retention and engagement: Recruitment and onboarding are costly. If better DEX reduces attrition by even a small percentage, the financial impact is substantial. Blink’s 2024 report highlights how poor digital tools are a hidden driver of turnover (JoinBlink, 2024).

Customer satisfaction: Faster access to knowledge, smoother collaboration and fewer errors all contribute to better customer service – an outcome every leadership team values.

In practice, business cases are strongest when they combine these elements. A blended story of cost savings, productivity uplift and employee sentiment creates a rounded picture that resonates with both finance and HR.

Measuring in practice

So how can organizations put all of this into practice? A successful DEX measurement programme often unfolds in stages.

Establish a baseline: Before making changes, map the current state. Use analytics to identify adoption and usage, review support logs for common issues, and run surveys or interviews to capture sentiment. Journey mapping workshops can reveal where employees hit digital roadblocks.
Set up monitoring dashboards: Implement tools to capture real-time performance data. This might include device uptime, application response times and ticket resolution metrics. Ensure dashboards are accessible and visual, not buried in IT systems.
Gather employee voice: Pair hard data with human feedback. Short, regular pulse surveys avoid fatigue while providing ongoing insight. Some organizations now embed quick ‘How was your experience?’ prompts directly into applications.
Run task-based testing: Select key employee journeys, such as finding a policy, submitting expenses or collaborating on a document, and measure how long they take, how many steps are involved and how many employees succeed on the first attempt.
Benchmark externally: Comparing your results with industry peers provides context. Independent benchmarking services, like our own at DWG, or even published DEX indexes, can show whether your performance is typical or lagging.
Close the loop: Share results with leadership and employees alike. Transparency builds trust and shows that feedback is acted on. Use findings to inform roadmap decisions, training priorities or governance improvements.

A common mistake is to treat measurement as a one-off project. DEX is dynamic; new tools launch, upgrades arrive and employee expectations shift. Measurement must therefore be a living process, with regular reviews and clear ownership.

Recent examples

Examples from the past two years show the value of proactive DEX measurement:

RLI Insurance used a digital experience monitoring platform to gain real-time insight into endpoint performance. By spotting and fixing issues before they reached users, downtime was reduced and employee satisfaction improved (1e, 2025).

Envoy Air, a subsidiary of American Airlines Group, transformed its communication approach by replacing outdated signage with centrally managed digital displays. This allowed messages to be updated instantly, ensuring frontline staff were kept informed and connected, and offering measurable improvements in reach and engagement (AV Network, 2025).

Industry research shows momentum is building. A survey found that only 30% of organizations currently use DEX tools, but more than half plan to adopt them by 2026 (ControlUp, 2025). This gap between current and planned investment underlines the growing recognition of DEX as a core discipline.

These cases illustrate both the diversity of approaches and the common theme in measuring that experience provides a route to targeted, impactful improvements.

Common challenges

Even with the best intentions, organizations will face hurdles. Among the most common are:

Fragmented data: With metrics scattered across different platforms, creating a joined-up view is complex. Integration is essential.
Adoption does not equal value: High usage numbers can mask poor experiences. Without qualitative insight, it is easy to be misled.
Employee trust: Monitoring tools risk being perceived as surveillance. Communicating purpose and protecting privacy are vital.
Governance gaps: DEX sits at the intersection of IT, HR and communications. Without clear ownership, measurement can fall between the cracks.
Immature practice: Many organizations are just starting their journey. The fact that most do not yet have formal DEX measurement in place shows the opportunity as well as the challenge.

Recognizing these challenges upfront helps teams to plan realistically and build the cross-functional coalitions needed for success.

Conclusion

The digital workplace is now the beating heart of most organizations. It is where employees communicate, collaborate and deliver value. But the quality of that experience cannot be taken for granted. Poorly integrated tools, slow systems or fragmented information can quietly undermine both morale and performance.

Measurement provides the means to see clearly. By capturing both quantitative and qualitative data, linking it to ROI and embedding it in continuous improvement, organizations can ensure that digital workplaces deliver on their promise.

Ultimately, measuring DEX is not just about dashboards and KPIs. It is about creating a culture where experience matters, where feedback is valued, and where decisions are guided by evidence rather than assumption. In doing so, organizations not only justify investment but also build trust, resilience and agility.

Those that master this discipline will be better placed to retain talent, improve productivity and unlock the full potential of their digital workplace. And in a world where digital experiences increasingly define the employee experience as a whole, that capability will be a source of competitive advantage.

While DWG remains vendor neutral, the case studies shared by technology providers illustrate the wide range of approaches organizations are using to enhance DEX.

Sources

Ivanti. 2024 Digital Employee Experience Report.

TeamViewer. Why digital employee experience (DEX) matters more than ever.

DWG. Stop digital friction from killing employee productivity.

Blink. Digital employee experience: Definition, examples & guide.

DWG. Employee engagement.

DWG. Benchmark your way to success.

DWG. Engaging with data.

1E. How RLI Insurance achieves greater visibility with the 1E platform.

AVNetwork. Video case study: How Envoy Air elevated employee engagement.

ControlUp. ControlUp Blog.

Categorised in: Digital employee experience