Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Reality Bytes #55: The Death (and Rebirth) of the Service Desk

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Reality Bytes #55: The Death (and Rebirth) of the Service Desk · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome it, change Makers to the Deck Show with Tim
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGraw. Let's get into it.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Hello, change Makers, welcome back to reality Bites Now regular
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: followers of next week, we'll have observed that we do
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: about once a year put out at least once a
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: year put out some original research. And we've done I
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: think many many interesting surveys and reports during my five
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: years of the organization, a lot of state of the
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: industry studies on the the impact of IT, interruptions and
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: such like. We just last week, however, we released what
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I sincerely feel is our most significant piece of external
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: research that we've yet commissioned, and I'm going to speak
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: a little bit about what was behind it. So the
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: report is called the Death and Rebirth of the Service Deck,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: how AI and automation are reshaping it and enterprise as productivity.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: And the study was carried out by Van Sentborn and
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: a hugely respected third party, very objective research organization we've
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: worked with consistently in the past, not only in doing
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: sort of this kind of thought leadership, but also in
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: our own internal market research. So we really really do
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: trust and value their sort of authenticity and objectivity, and
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: we went to them with an interesting question. We've heard
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: here and there, internally and externally rumors of what you
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: might call the death of the service desk going back
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: a few years now, and we know that's what some
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: people might call the death of the service desk. Other
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: people might call the rebirth of the service desk, the
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: re imagining of the service desk. But we're also very
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: conscious that, you know, a lot of our listeners, a
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: lot of nexting customers, a lot of people we know
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: in the industry actually currently work in the service desk,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: and you know, we reappreciate the prospect of significant change
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: in your industry and your career could be a source
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: of stress or insecurity. So we didn't want to sort
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: of amplify a message that might sound alarming, shall we say,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: But we were extremely interested in what the people who
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: work in the service desk, who work in EUC managers
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: and frontline staff actually think is going to happen in
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: their careers over the next few years. So using Vansenborn,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: we went and asked over one thousand people and we
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: ask them out right, you know, is the service desk
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: going to die? Is the service desk going to change?
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: What do you think it should be called what are
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: your expectations around the future of your career? What are
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: you doing now to future proof your career, what is
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: your team investing in, and what is the general direction
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: of travel? And I have to say I've never seen
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: such emphatic or indeed interesting responses from any kind of
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: survey that I've been involved in and becurse of my
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: career before we were getting seventies, eighties nineties in terms
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: of in terms of the sort of percentiles of which
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: we were the respondents with the responses were giving us
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: really really emphatic responses, and they ranged from both an
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: expectation of really significant change, particularly in the area of
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: the service desk, to genuine optimism and excitement about what
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: this means for people's career, what it means for the
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: capacity of the uced to change, to keep up with
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: the changing digital workplace, to continue to provide value to
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: their colleagues in their organizations, and to have a sort
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: of interesting and challenging work life I think, for years
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: to come. So we're really really proud of the report,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: and you know, I've given an outline of it, but
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: we actually have two regular panelists on Bites, both Sean
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: and Meghan were intrinsically involved in the conception and executioner
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: for report. Meghan was unable to be here with us
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: for this recording today, sadly, but it shout out to Meghan.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: For her involvement in it.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: But Sean report author, among other things, is here with us.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: And Sean, I kind of saw your funder a little
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: bit in sketching out the background of the report and
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: the data. Sorry about that, but I wonder if you
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: could just maybe begin and kick us off with giving
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: us an overview of some of the main highlights on
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: what stood out to you.
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, certainly, so, I'll definitely just to echo what you said.
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: This was a survey carried out with Vans and Borne.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: We've worked with them over the past couple of years.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: They have a great reputation and we went across a
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: thousand respondents from four major markets, the US, the UK,
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: Germany and France, and they were split roughly twenty eight
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: percent frontline IT workers, seventy two percent service management leaders
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: and yeah, the results the main highlights from the report.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: The first kind of narrative or theme that came through
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: quite strongly is that it is indeed evolving the service
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: desks more towards experience. Like you alluded to, a lot
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: of the scores that came back were in the high nineties,
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: where a lot of people were agreeing that that's the
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: direction in the next couple of years. One thing I
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: liked about it too, was folks in the respondents highlighted
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: certain tactics and strategies that they think are going to
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: be important in the coming years, one being proactivity, the
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: other being self service and AI and automation. And then
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: likewise from the survey towards the end, they also voicer
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: concerns like roadblocks and obstacles in the way with certain
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: technologies and even those strategies themselves. So what we decided
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: to do is taking all of that, we try to
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: button up the survey at the end by offering our
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: own customer stories and how they've dealt with those very
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: same problems and issues. So that's kind of the short
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: one minute explanation of it.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: And I mean, so you know, we were surveying frontline
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: workers effectively and managers as I mentioned, and we were
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: interested in their perspective without that, but if you're if
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: you're a CEO or a CIO, why should you be
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: interested in what they think, which sounds a bit dismissive.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: I don't mean it like that, but what is the
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: relevance of this study to you, potentially if you're at
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: the executive level.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. I think this report is sort of
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: like a sanity check on the future of IT in
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: the next couple of years, and it also offers a
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: game plan for how to address the concerns that are
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: voice from you know, your own employees, the middle managers
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: and those in the frontline staff. One thing that came
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: through is there's actually optimism for AI and automation from
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: those varied workers, and I think you alluded to it
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: as well in the beginning. This doesn't necessarily spell the
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: end of the folks who are working in the service desk.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: It just it calls out the fact that they're optimistic
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: about changing their roles in leveraging AI in smart ways.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: And I think if I'm a CTO or a CIO,
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: I want to hear what my department is saying and
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: what they're thinking about in the future in highlighting the
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: problems that they already are experiencing, as well as have
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: that sort of game plan for addressing it.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, tim some of the most emphatic responses we got
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: proactive it. I wasn't surprised exactly. I'd say every single
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Next Thing customer I've spoken to, which is potentially over
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: one hundred two hundred something like that over the last
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: few years, has always cited going proactive as a core
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: reason for their investment. So I did have a sense
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: but for some time now it's been a priority. But
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: then a lot of Next Thing customers what you might
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: call early adopters in this area, and what we got
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: in the response is where, you know, in terms of
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: investment and commitment to going proactive across all these different
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: IT departments, we surveyed ninety one two three four five percent, Yes,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: that's what we're doing. That's where we're putting our resources.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: And slightly lower but still very striking eighty seven percent
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: of respondents agreed. But without a proactive capability of the
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: future of incident response could be economic would be economically unsustainable.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: So the question for you is how has the strategy
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: and point of view around proactive it changed in your
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: time at Next Thing, specifically going back perhaps to Behartford even.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, when we started with Next Thing, it's
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: almost twelve years ago. Now, we latched on to the
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: term proactive it very quickly, almost not almost to the
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: point of naming our team Proactive Services. So we saw
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: the benefit in getting proactive very early, and the support
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: for that came from the top. We were told find
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: a better way, right, it's not sustainable to rely on
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: employees to call the help desk for everything that breaks.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: And then when I came to next Think as an
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: employee nine years ago, it was still all about analytics,
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: getting data to do the job better, and conversations I
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: think over the years have evolved to be more in
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: the terms of proactive it. We talk about that much
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: more often now. I think it's just a and in
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: my travels I can legitimately say it's a global initiative
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: or conversation rather to get proactive. And the point that
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: I make with people and when I talk about it
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: now is a lot of people think proactive it is
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: finding problems that are existing in the environment and fixing
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: them more quickly. I'm going to be proactive because I
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: can fix it before the employee even has a chance
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: to pick up the phone. And my point that I'm
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: to them now is you're removing the that removes the
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: dependency on the employee. We need to remove the dependency
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: on the service desk, and the only way to do
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: that is to stop breaking the environment to begin with.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Then you start to remove that dependency on the help desk,
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: and I think more and more people nod their head
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: in agreement. The only reason we have a help desk
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: is because we're in the dark. When the lights come on,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: you lessen the need for a help us. Think about
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: this time. Can you even imagine a help desk for
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: an iPhone? We always compare ourselves to consumer it. There
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: is no help desk for the iPhone. That environment is stable, predictable, reliable.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: It's absurd to think that you would need an iPhone
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: for that environment. So I think the evolution away from
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: a help desk or I often heard at our field
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: offices when I was a customer the helpless desk. It's
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: just a matter of time, and it also is to
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: Shan's point, it gives people a whole new pathway for
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: their career. A lot of people are stuck on a
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: treadmill fixing the same things over and over again, and
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: this open up all kinds of options for a career path.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Nothing fills the heart with dread like a necessary trip
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: to the Genius Bart if you do have a malfunctioning
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: Apple device. Okay, so you know, our respondents, you know,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: showed a clear, clear desire for proactive I T a
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: commitment to it effectively, which is probably in terms of
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: its prevalent, something that's changed since twelve years ago. But
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Hartford sounds like very early adoption to that concept there.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: But they also kind of highlighted some of the challenges
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: implementing a strategy, and they cited employee resistance change for example. Actually, ironically,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: considering the employees they're presumably referring to, here are those
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: in it, and these respects representative of it, maybe there's
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: less cultural resistance and we might think presently none the
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: lesser are other obstacles as well, And I mean, you
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: know you will encounter resistance to change. Of course, what
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: advice would you have for IT execs interested in overcoming
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: this or barriers like it?
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with the separation of knowledge workers
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: and business employees versus IT employees. The overwhelming feedback when
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: we told our employees about proactive services was thank god,
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: what took you so long? There's no resistance from employees
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: on proactive IT, but IT people I think are a
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: little more perhaps skeptical. Is the data accurate. There's a
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: lot of and absolutely no insult suggested to anybody in it.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: But let's face it, talking as an IT person myself,
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: if it's not my idea and you're trying to force
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: something on me, I'm going to be a little resistant
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: to it. So I think that change can happen within
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: it from the top down, but it also has to
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: happen from the bottom up up, and it's most successful
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: when they meet in the middle. So IT execs can
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: give space for their teams to go find a new way.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: I was given that space. It was done rather forcefully.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: It was a fix this now kind of a statement
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: from our CEO to your point, it's not economically sustainable
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: to keep requiring people to call the help desk. And
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: I like to make a point in talking to extremes,
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: only half of employees call the help desk anyways, and
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: it's economically unsustainable. If you required every employee to call
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: in every issue, your tickets would double. You couldn't possibly
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: handle the volume of calls and the expense. If you
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: were to do that, so it execs, give them space
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: to make it their own ideas, set the direction, set
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: the expectation, and then let the teams determine the best
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: path forward. We were told very clearly that it's not sustainable.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: We found a solution. So here's what I would say
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: to it execs. You can't ignore the problem and just
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: do business as usual. It's not sustainable for economically not sustainable,
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: but also for your people. And you also can't force
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: a solution to say here's what we're going to go do,
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: so just go implement it. You've got to be in
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: the middle, support the team to find a solution, set
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: the direction on why, and then let them go find
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: the right solution.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Great, and within the report, I should stipulate that although
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: we are we were generally interested in attitudes of it,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: we also got into some of the sort of technical
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: detail around obstructions to change, around around points of why
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: change is accelerating as well, and just to touch upon
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: a couple of these with DNA specifically. For instance, seventy
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: four percent agreed that the growing number of sas aps
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: in their organization, we're making it harder to manage the
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: employee user experience. I wonder if you could shed some
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: light on why specifically that's the case and what solutions
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: you might saygest to it.
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: Totally agree, the growing number of SaaS apps make it
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: harder for any IT level person to manage because there
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: is fragmentation, there is complex complexity in the user management
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: inconsistent interfaces. Once each and every application gets its new
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: update or feature, boom, it's a totally different way to manage.
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: You need to train your IT people to actually troubleshoot
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: and assist the employees in fixing that data silos and
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: security challenges that keeps on popping up all the time,
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: and actually choosing the user friendly apps, in gathering employees
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: feedback and such. So there's plenty of variety. One even
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: just reading for reading PD apps or browsers, et cetera.
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: It could be three four five in an organization, which
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: makes it a lot harder when you're trying to manage
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: a complex organization. And the more people are given the
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: liberty to choose which applications they want to use better
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: even for collaboration and such, it becomes harder to manage
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: in the back end. So solutions for that I think
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: is going to be around having SSOs so getting a
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: single sign on in the organization too easy. To make
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: it easier for access, consolidate the applications to reduce the
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: number of platforms that are being used and integrate more
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: into the platform. Connect the applications together so there is
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: less data silos, and choosing the more user friendly apps
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: with less interfaces that would be harder. And most importantly
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: is to train and support to help the employees adapt
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: and adopt the new applications that are in place.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Excellent and obviously next menk Launch designed Digital Adoption platform
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: functionality this very year and it was something else for
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: that reason, to be quite honess, we wanted to ask
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: our respondents about and interestingly many respondents that they anticipated
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: in terms of the future of UC more generally, that
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: there will be you work app teachers and consultants embedded
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: in companies to train employees. Do you think that progression
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: makes sense? And maybe would you underscore the potential utility
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: of technology to help with that. You can have experts
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: embedded there, but they need a way to reach for
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: users fundamentally at scale.
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: Right totally agree because the idea of having work app
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: teachers or consultants embedded in companies to train the employees
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: constantly on the uprising digital tools and softwares that are
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: in place makes a lot of sense, especially giving the
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: complexity and diversity of these applications in the workplace, as
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: we highlighted earlier. So having theded digital app trainers or
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: consultants in place makes it easier and the adoption for
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: the employees to actually be more compliant, more consistent, make
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: it a lot easier into managing the tools effectively leading
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: to a higher productivity and better adoption rates, which we
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: can go back to the point of course we support
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: that since we do have adopt and now we are
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: able to actually do that with the next thing. So
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: the more we get that it's not just going to
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: be measuring the digital employee experience, but then also teaching
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: employees to be more productive, to be more actually proactive,
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: and all of the things that we were talking about earlier,
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: even with tim right. So to help people adopt more
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: what you're trying to not impose, but trying to influence
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: in using in the workplace from those applications, you need
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: to teach them, and you need to teach them on
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: the go, and it needs to be as quick and
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: as smart as people's clicks and fills are. It's not
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: just going to be a classroom of let me know,
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: how do I use that application or I follow that
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: guide on manual. You really need things on the go
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: that are learning from what you do and actually teaching
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: you what you need to do better.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: And would you say anything, maybe illustrate for people who
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: don't know about adopt how it helps right, Like it's
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: maybe hard to imagine if you haven't seen the tool
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: in action.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: Yes, for sure. So it then next thing, you're able
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: to monitor and improve the software adoption by providing the
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: real time visibility into the usage and tracking of the software,
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: so you're able to really see. Imagine you opening any
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: browser page and you're clicking up on the right to
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: create a document or to send an email, et cetera,
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: and you're trying to click in a different place. It
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: would suggest to you where to go how to create
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: the document or send an email or fill in the
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: form that you're trying to do in a much more
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: agile way, let's say. So it helps you gather and
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: it also gathers the employees' feedback, puts it into data
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: driven insights, not just recommendations that are made random. It's
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: more or less customized for the user to actually adapt
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: adapt to their user experience.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Wonderful, Orianna. I always think of you when I think
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: of that intersection between psychology and technology, and it's very
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: interested to hear your perspective on some of the findings
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: we had around around optimism, around around feeling about the
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: future of work. For these professionals that we surveyed, there was,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: as I said at the top of the discussion, significant
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: optimism about the potentiality of AI in the EUC space.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Sixty three percent were very optimistic for their organization, fifty
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: three percent very optimistic for the future of their career.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: And if you just go for quite optimistic, but either
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: went up to seventies, eighties, nineties, you know.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: What, would you does that?
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: First of all, does that surprise you? But there's a
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: general positive feeling among those who work in IE about
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: the potential impact of AI on what they do and
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: what they'll be able to do. And are you yourself
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: optimistic about that? That what the implications are for people's
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: career in this space.
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: I was not terribly surprised, and I also wasn't surprised
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: to hear that so many people were excited to focus
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: on the digital employee experience and really improving the employee experience,
• 21:29
  Speaker 6: because I think a lot of people who go into
• 21:30
  Speaker 6: IT go into it because they like solving problems, because
• 21:34
  Speaker 6: they do want to create a good experience. Now we
• 21:37
  Speaker 6: just have an entirely new language and set of tools
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: in order to be able to do that. But I
• 21:43
  Speaker 6: don't think any IT person was ever really going into
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: I T thinking, nah, I don't really care about fixing problems, right, Like,
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: that's not how you end up in it. So I
• 21:53
  Speaker 6: think I think that's part of it, right, is just
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: this enthusiasm to actually be solving problems rather than being
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: stuck on road tasks. Because I also have never met
• 22:02
  Speaker 6: anybody who loves the mind knowingly boring road tasks that
• 22:06
  Speaker 6: make up so much of what IT does. So I
• 22:09
  Speaker 6: think that's where a lot of the excitement comes from.
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: Is can we automate away some of these things like
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: password resets, reboots, things that take up an amazing amount
• 22:20
  Speaker 6: of time and very minimal brain power, but that can
• 22:27
  Speaker 6: really free up IT personnel to be focusing on more
• 22:31
  Speaker 6: interesting problems, are more impactful problems, And that's Also, where
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: the opportunity for growth will be right is being able
• 22:40
  Speaker 6: to as Tim was mentioning right at the beginning, focusing
• 22:43
  Speaker 6: on really making improvements rather than just pressing the button
• 22:48
  Speaker 6: every day to turn the computer off and on again.
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: So I think that's one of the places where people
• 22:52
  Speaker 6: are really optimistic.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Great, And yeah, you wouldn't necessarily think that blood ites
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: and drawn to ITI. You know, they're going to be
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: people who embrace technological change according to their very nature perhaps,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: But what cautions would you suggest to any IT department
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: looking to expand its use of AI and expand its
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: investment AI.
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah, So I think sort of the bridge between these
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: two ideas is also who are you asking? Because I
• 23:22
  Speaker 6: do think there are differences once you start to look
• 23:26
  Speaker 6: at different populations, right, So one thing that I've seen
• 23:30
  Speaker 6: in other industry surveys is that management always tends to
• 23:34
  Speaker 6: be slightly more optimistic, and people using the tools are
• 23:37
  Speaker 6: often a little bit more pessimistic because they're encountering the
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: limitations more readily with AI. And so there can also
• 23:44
  Speaker 6: be friction if there's a mismatch between management and workers
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: in terms of what they can actually accomplish with existing tools.
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: At the moment right there's optimism for the future, and
• 23:55
  Speaker 6: there's what can these tools do right now. The other
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: part is implementation. So something else that I've seen in
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: other industry research is the importance of change management, and
• 24:07
  Speaker 6: we see that in this survey as well. There's a
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: lot of concerns about the difficulty in rolling out new software,
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: in driving adoption of new software. That's one of the
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: reasons why we're focusing on it right now. And some
• 24:20
  Speaker 6: of it has to do with the I almost want
• 24:24
  Speaker 6: to say backlash, but the negative impact of poor change
• 24:28
  Speaker 6: management in the past, especially in the past few years,
• 24:30
  Speaker 6: where we have had this huge surge in SaaS applications
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: where people in many different roles are using a lot
• 24:39
  Speaker 6: of different types of software instead of just one. That
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: has caused trust to be drastically reduced. It's caused friction
• 24:46
  Speaker 6: to increase because people have had such poor experiences with
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: being required to adopt a lot of new technology. So
• 24:53
  Speaker 6: we're building that trust requires thoughtful implementation of new technology,
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: and I think that will be really key to you
• 25:00
  Speaker 6: enabling new tools and really helping people to get value
• 25:05
  Speaker 6: out of them.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Beautifully expressed as ever Oriana and everybody and you know,
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: if you're listening and you're thinking, my goodness, what an
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: amazing survey. Where can I buy a copy? Well, just
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: check the show notes and you can download it for free.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: As ever, from next Think, we do we do aim
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: to give real value to the market and to make
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: it as accessible as we can. Please do, please do
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: check out that survey. We're really really excited about it.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: We think there are some some really interesting data points
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: to look over, with some interesting implications for the space
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: we all work in. So it just remains for me,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: of course, to thank Tim, Dina, Sean and Oriana, and
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: I hope to see you all soon bye.
• 25:53
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• 25:56
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• 26:00
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• 26:03
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• 26:06
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• 26:09
  Speaker 1: about how next Think can help me improve your digital
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: employee experience, head over to nextthink dot com. Thank you
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: so much for listening. Until next time,