Where is digital employee experience (DEX) headed in 2025? Andrew Hewitt, Principal Analyst at Forrester, shares some very interesting themes in his recent blog post, “The Great DEX-pansion Of 2025.” Andrew takes a look at the evolving landscape of digital employee experience and predicts significant changes ahead.
As Chief People and Experience Officer at Simpplr, I welcome this focus on “DEX-pansion” as it provides an opportunity to discuss how we must ensure a human-centric approach to DEX.
The evolution of digital employee experience (DEX)
Andrew rightly points out that DEX initiatives have often been siloed, with IT, HR and other business units working independently. He also does a great job describing the obstacles businesses face when looking to integrate multiple DEX tools to provide a cohesive employee experience.
I have seen these types of challenges over and over again as an HR leader, and I believe the path forward lies in not just expanding DEX capabilities, but in fundamentally reimagining DEX from the employee’s perspective.
As we all work towards expanding our DEX capabilities, we must ensure that we’re not just adding more tools, but creating a truly unified and employee-centric digital experience. Let’s explore how organizations can prepare for this DEX-pansion while keeping the human element at the forefront.
Related: Humanize the workplace to achieve sustainable growth
The challenge of ownership and integration
DEX is a distributed phenomenon that doesn’t have a singular owner in organizations. This is true, even for those who have designated a “digital experience leader,” which typically falls under HR or IT, taking an integrative role across functions.
But the reality from an employee perspective is that most often they have a disjointed digital experience.
So, however, we solve for it, we do need to come together across functions to work on it, and it’s encouraging to see more of this happening. Wherever the DEX role sits, it is a role that naturally has to collaborate across functions and work from the perspective of streamlining and simplifying the user experience.
Bridging the gap between HR and IT
Digital employee experience leadership can sit in either HR or IT, but it increasingly aligns with HR — especially as DEX has become a key component of employee engagement, retention and productivity strategies. Since the goal of DEX is to enhance the digital touchpoints and tools employees interact with daily, many companies see it as a way to improve overall employee well-being and work satisfaction, which HR traditionally manages.
However, there’s still a strong case for DEX to sit in IT, particularly in organizations where the role has a large technical or infrastructure focus — like implementing and supporting digital platforms, optimizing network access, or ensuring cybersecurity. Whatever the construct, IT has a leading role with HR in close partnership to align technology with employee needs.
In some companies, DEX is emerging as a cross-functional role, sometimes within a dedicated Employee Experience team, that bridges HR, IT and Operations. The trend is definitely leaning toward HR as the primary home for DEX, working in close collaboration with IT.
Related: Navigating the three circles of employee engagement
Responding to Forrester’s ‘Great DEX-pansion’ prediction
In the Forrester blog Andrew points out that while we have access to so many more tools, they aren’t coming with increased visibility. He makes a valid point that the need to deliver a consistent experience is hampered when there’s a plethora of tools and their integration is sub-optimized.
I agree with his perspective that part of what will drive the “Great DEX-pansion” is the power of a more unified experience, with integrated analytics, alongside the importance of designing the DEX from the user perspective, then figuring out how to create a more unified and seamless experience.
Integrating analytics and user-centric design
I believe organizations are increasingly taking a human-centered approach, moving beyond tech-centric or productivity-only perspectives when evaluating employee-facing applications. I agree with the prediction that we will continue down the path of leveraging the possibilities a more integrated view of employee experience can bring us, as we work to solve the challenges of the (generally) more fractured experience today.
Related: Why intranets fail — Inferior UI frustrates employees
The promise of human-centric DEX
I think the possibilities and promise of a more human-centric, unified digital employee experience are compelling and, for me, include:
1. Personalization at scale
- Customizing tools and resources: One-size-fits-all tools often don’t meet the diversity of employees’ needs. Bringing more personalization into your DEX by offering adaptable interfaces, personalized paths and content recommendations tailored to individual roles, goals and interests, is where we are headed.
2. Integrated platforms over siloed systems
- Unified single engagement layer for employees: Rather than switching between applications, companies are increasingly introducing a single, unified “digital home” for employees that reduces friction, streamlines workflows, and cuts down on app-hopping fatigue and inefficiencies.
- Interoperable tools: Companies are also prioritizing tools that integrate with others to help create a seamless experience and allow data to flow smoothly across systems. One of my top five evaluation criteria for any new software is how interoperable it is with other components of our tech stack. Both for the benefit of the user experience, and from the perspective of integrative analytics and other needs we have as system administrators.
3. Well-being as a core DEX metric
- Considering digital well-being: As companies solve for the DEX, thinking more about the human experience and figuring out how to reduce digital friction, genuinely making it easier for employees to find what they need, get things done, and reduce app-hopping.
4. Data-driven decision-making and continuous feedback
- Actionable insights from usage data: Companies can increasingly seek to leverage analytics to refine the DEX based on real-time data, observing how employees engage with tools to identify gaps or pain points.
- Employee input channels: Feedback from employees on digital tools and workflows is crucial for continuous improvement. Regular pulse surveys, open forums, or even direct feedback mechanisms within apps help align the DEX with actual needs. Continuous feedback allows companies to implement changes rapidly, respond to new pain points, and enhance the platform experience.
5. Support for an inclusive experience wherever and however people work
- Flexibility in tools and platforms: Employees working remotely or in hybrid settings need tools that offer flexibility, from secure access to remote work systems to mobile-friendly platforms.
Related: Next in EX — Trends shaping employee experience
The future of DEX: A people-centric approach
By shifting to a people-centric DEX that addresses individual and organizational needs, organizations create a more engaged, productive, and resilient workforce. At Simpplr, that is the approach we take with our unified employee experience platform.
By bringing an intranet, communications, recognition and rewards, surveys and more into a single, user-friendly and personalized experience, Simpplr removes friction by reducing the complexity and number of apps employees need to interact with on a day-to-day basis. Request a demo to see Simpplr in action.
Let’s keep the conversation going!
DEX-pansion is happening. The question is, are you ready?
What are your thoughts? Bookmark this blog, and follow me on LinkedIn to continue the conversation.
