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From Reactive to Strategic: How IT Can Transform Work by Focusing on People

Dave Shull, President, HP Solutions

 
Imagine two IT departments. Both have the same budget, similar technology stacks, and comparable security challenges. Yet one consistently drives business growth, leads successful AI initiatives, and attracts top talent, while the other is stuck putting out fires and struggling for executive recognition.
 
What separates them? New research suggests the key factor is something that might surprise you: how deeply they invest in employee experience.
 

The Great Divide That Defines Success

 
I've spent my career watching technology transform how we work, but our survey revealed something that I found striking. There's a fundamental divide emerging in how IT organizations see their role, and it's affecting how companies perform.
 
Less than half of the IT leaders we surveyed (45%) consider employee experience a core responsibility. This group, which we'll call Leaders, don't just fix IT problems, they proactively design employee technology experiences that drive fulfillment and productivity. 
 
The results speak for themselves: these Leaders say their focus on employee experience drives higher growth rates, more successful AI deployments, and significantly easier talent acquisition. And yet, they’re in the minority.
 
The other 55%—what I'll call the Holdouts—remain trapped in reactive support mode. They're so busy responding to urgent IT requests that they miss the bigger opportunity: using technology to unlock human potential. 
 
it-employee-experience

 

Where employees actually struggle

 
I get it. IT teams are busier than ever, buried under an avalanche of IT tickets. But while they're stuck in reactive mode fixing problems like broken video calls and file-sharing issues, they're actually missing the deeper friction that most impacts employee satisfaction and productivity.
 
Here's what our research revealed about where employees are really hurting:
  • 80% feel overwhelmed by routine tasks that bury meaningful work
  • 69% struggle with focus and flow, constantly interrupted when trying to concentrate
 
Meanwhile, 74% of IT departments receive requests to improve collaboration tools. There's a fascinating disconnect here. IT teams are solving the visible problems while the invisible ones—the ones that determine whether people can actually do their best work—go unaddressed.
 
This creates a blind spot that costs companies dearly. When employees can't focus, when routine work drowns out innovation, when technology creates friction instead of removing it, everyone loses.
 

The technology catalyst: digital employee experience

 
What separates the Leaders from the Holdouts isn't just a mindset, it's implementation. Organizations that truly prioritize employee experience are twice as likely to deploy Digital Employee Experience (DEX) solutions that provide continuous visibility into how technology is affecting teams and their productivity.
 
At HP, our Workplace Experience Platform exemplifies this new generation of DEX solutions that go beyond traditional system monitoring to understand the actual employee experience. These platforms track everything from device performance to application responsiveness to user sentiment, then automatically alert IT teams to issues before they impact productivity.
 
The impact is measurable: 85% of IT leaders who have deployed DEX systems say they're able to focus on long-term strategic initiatives, compared to 63% without them. Meanwhile, 87% of IT leaders say their employees can spend more time on meaningful work.
 
That means DEX provides a double dividend: IT gains strategic focus, while employees gain fulfillment.
 

The missing priority

 
However, most organizations are not prioritizing employee experience. Asked about their most important initiatives for the next 12 months, 69% identified Digital Transformation and AI, while 62% identified cybersecurity. While this is understandable given current industry pressures, only 36% said they prioritize employee experience, despite evidence that it drives better business outcomes.
 
This finding aligns with HP’s latest Work Relationship Index, which reveals that just 20% of knowledge workers feel they have a healthy relationship with work—a sharp decline from the previous year. The Index underscores the urgency for organizations to rethink how they support employees, especially as expectations rise and fulfillment declines.

 

Breaking through the barriers

 
Here's what surprised me most: the biggest obstacles to DEX adoption aren't budgetary. For sure, everybody is watching their costs, and rightly so, but the real barriers are strategic and cultural.
 
The most commonly cited reason for not implementing a DEX system is that it's either not seen as a strategic priority (35%) or it’s seen as a "nice to have" (32%). This mindset prevents organizations from realizing that employee experience is the foundation for productivity, innovation, and competitive advantage.
 

The personal stakes for IT leaders

 
Perhaps the most compelling finding is that IT teams that deploy DEX solutions feel more fulfilled themselves. When technology removes barriers instead of creating them, and when IT can solve meaningful problems instead of just putting out fires, that changes everything.
 
I've seen this transformation firsthand. IT leaders who embrace employee experience gain visibility into their impact, data to prove their value, and the deep satisfaction that comes from knowing their work helps people thrive.
 

The competitive advantage hiding in plain sight

 
Every organization talks about digital transformation, but most focus on customer-facing technology. Companies that will dominate moving forward will also prioritize employee technology, which will allow them to attract the best talent, increase productivity, and adapt faster to change.
 
When technology removes barriers and strengthens connections, people are better supported to do their best work, wherever they are. HP is uniquely positioned to support every aspect of that experience, from enabling seamless collaboration to unlocking insights through data. It's all part of creating a smarter, more human-centered workplace.
 
Our research is clear: embracing employee experience isn't just good for your people, it's good for your business. The question is whether your IT organization will be among those who seize this opportunity to unlock human potential, or those who miss it.
 
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HP’s "Fulfillment at Work: IT View" report surveyed 1,825 IT decision makers (IT Manager, IT VP/Director, CIO/CTO) in the US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil, in 2025.
 
Leaders and holdouts were defined based on whether they:
  • Set employee experience as an IT priority
  • Incorporate employee experience in IT planning
  • Are included in company-wide employee experience initiatives
  • Perceived themselves as leading or being responsible for company-wide employee experience
  • The report identified 818 leaders and 1,007 holdouts.

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HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) is a global technology leader redefining the Future of Work. Operating in more than 180 countries, HP delivers innovative and AI-powered devices, software, services and subscriptions that drive business growth and professional fulfillment. For more information, please visit: HP.com.
 
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