The team at Step Two are about ready to take the wraps off the design for the Digital Employee Experience (DEX) conference, coming in September 2019 (and as of today, only 110 days away). The conference is held over three days (September 18-20) in Sydney, Australia, so if you are located out of region, get those long-haul tickets booked. Step Two describe the focus on the conference in this way:

Digital employee experience (#DEX) considers every touchpoint between staff and their employer. This conference brings together intranet teams, digital teams, internal comms, IT and HR to explore what great DEX looks like.

If we drop the word digital for a moment, employee experience is focused on the way an employee experiences the journey of being an employee at an organisation. Were they valued for the strengths they brought to the table or shop floor? Did they find supportive managers and coworkers? Were they able to feel like they were making progress and a contribution? How clear were they on the value they could add at each stage of their employment? There’s a lot of ideas from employee engagement and organisational culture that come through in these questions, and the theory is that the better the employee experience, the better the employee’s contribution, and the better the organisational performance. Knowing the design parameters of good employee experience enables an organisation to be more intentional in setting out the right balance between them.

Now let’s add back the word digital. Notwithstanding the wider influence of employee experience, each employee also has a digital experience at an organisation. Does the digital estate make sense and feel coherent? Is it simple to get the right work done using digital tools (or is it a mess of confusion)? Are employees supported in their journey for greater digital literacy and dexterity in service of organisational goals? Can an employee find what they need to find, when they need to find it, and be able to put what’s found to productive use? And so on.

The upcoming DEX conference is a celebration and exploration of all things digital experience, and if you have design powers for any of these topics, you’ll appreciate the insight and inspiration on offer in Sydney.