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3 min read

New Report: 45% of employees feel remote workers are valued as much as in-person

3 min read

Phillip Hamada

Miradore recently conducted a nationwide report on technology’s role in the digital employee experience, surveying more than 1,000 Americans representative of the U.S. population. The results show the technology solutions that ensure a positive remote work experience, especially as more people are working remotely than ever before.

The Methodology

We asked four questions to more than 1,000 Americans representative of the U.S. population with the goal of gaining deeper insight into the digital employee experience. This included asking about technology that solutions enhance day-to-day efficiency, as well as technology that makes the remote experience more frustrating and why.

For each question, we received crosstabs of data specific to gender, age, household income, region, family status, education, employment status, marital status, race/ethnicity, and neighborhood (rural, suburban, urban).

The Takeaways

Overall, the results indicate that the majority of employees feel that in-person workers are still slightly more valued, but companies are deploying different technology solutions to close this gap.

Many employees identified the more widely recognized technologies like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Slack as enhancing productivity in the workplace. On the other hand, Mobile Device Management (MDM) was only found to enhance productivity in a hybrid or remote environment by 4% of respondents. This leads us to infer that the average employee is not aware of the purpose of MDM in their institution, if it is deployed. MDM, if used appropriately, will feel like a seamless, behind-the-scenes technology solution, especially when compared to the communication and connectivity platforms remote and hybrid workers use every day, like Slack and Zoom.

Finally, it’s becoming evident that there is a level of device and innovation fatigue in the workplace with respondents reporting frustrations around the quick-changing nature of technology and being required to use too many different devices and platforms.

The Results

Upon receiving the results, we identified a handful of data points that we believe are insightful for the industry at large and our work specifically. We’ve outlined a few of those findings here:

  • 45% of employees agree that remote workers are as valued and trusted as those who work in-person.
      • This percentage was even higher for those who are full time employees at their place of business (60%), for those of whom have a household income of $100k+ (54%), and for those who hold a college degree (51%).
  • 35% of respondents noted that their company uses technology solutions to make employees feel engaged and included.
      • For those employed full time (55%) and those with a household income of $100k+ (49%), this percentage was even greater.
      • Nearly half of those 18-34 (48%) reported technology use in this manner.
      • Others responded directly that technology like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, Skype, Kahoot, SharePoint, Slack, Asana, the ability to text in a work environment, and free work computers for home were some of the technology solutions that companies use to improve engagement in a hybrid or remote environment.
      • Some shared that companies deployed virtual meetings to provide congratulations, the choice of technology provider (Microsoft v. Google), employee engagement surveys, virtual social events, and regular virtual check-ins.
  • The top three technologies reported to enhance productivity in a hybrid or remote environment are:
      • Teleconferencing (Zoom, Google Meet, etc.) - 30%
      • Collaboration suites (Microsoft 365, Google for Business, etc.) - 21%
      • Digital note taking (OneNote, Evernote, etc.) - 13%
  • The biggest frustrations about technology in respondents’ positions and day-to-day work included:
      • Quickly changing nature of technology (21%)
      • Use of too many different devices and software platforms (17%)
      • Insufficient IT support staff and resources (14%)
      • Outdated, damaged, and otherwise insufficient software (14%) or hardware (13%)
      • Reliance on third-party vendors (12%)
  • In large part (72%), respondents were not concerned with AI technologies like ChatGPT negatively impacting their jobs in the next year.
      • However, respondents ages 18-34 had the highest frequency of concern (37%).
      • Those who make less than $50k were more concerned about these innovations than those who make >$50k.

Why Mobile Device Management (MDM)?

With the top two frustrations with technology in the day-to-day work for remote employees being the quickly changing nature of technology and the use of many different devices and software platforms, this is where an MDM provider like Miradore can come in to ease some of these annoyances. For example, as technology changes and requires constant updates, Miradore can automatically deploy software updates and configurations, saving time for both the employee and the IT department. Additionally, MDM streamlines the IT support process by helping with troubleshooting and device diagnostics over the air.

Phillip Hamada Author background

by Phillip Hamada

Phill joined Miradore in November 2020 as a Digital Marketing Specialist. If he's not writing or translating content you can find him on a basketball court somewhere.

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