Your systems work great. Here's how to make employees feel great, too.
August 28, 2025 / Simon Wilson
Short on time? Read the key takeaways:
- Traditional device metrics tell only half the story. Employee sentiment reveals how technology impacts productivity and satisfaction.
- Experience-as-a-Service combines operational data with emotional feedback to create comprehensive experience insights.
- Organizations measuring both technical performance and user sentiment see measurable improvements in productivity, retention and digital transformation success.
- XLAs complement SLAs by answering "How did that feel?" alongside "Did it work?"
Your IT dashboard tells an impressive story. Device uptime hits 99.8%, application response times stay under two seconds and service desk tickets drop month over month. You've mastered the technical side of employee experience. But there's another story waiting to be told, one that reveals how employees feel about their technology interactions and opens new opportunities for even greater success.
The missing half of the equation
Consider two scenarios – One employee has a device that performs flawlessly yet struggles when using a new application interface. The other employee’s device occasionally hiccups, but they feel supported by responsive IT assistance. Traditional metrics favor the first scenario, yet the second employee likely has a better overall experience and higher productivity.
The difference? Sentiment. How employees feel about their technology interactions directly influences their effectiveness, regardless of technical performance.
Most organizations excel at gathering device telemetry through digital experience monitoring tools. IT teams track device health, memory usage, patch status, login duration and crash frequency across thousands of endpoints. This data helps identify system issues before they escalate.
The dual-metric approach: Measuring what matters to people
This gap has led enlightened organizations to combine operational metrics with human feedback. While service level agreements (SLAs) track technical performance, experience level agreements (XLAs) capture how employees feel about their technology interactions.
XLAs ask different questions than traditional monitoring:
- How do employees feel about onboarding new technology?
- How would they rate their IT support interactions?
- Do they feel confident and empowered by their digital tools?
This dual approach reveals insights that purely technical metrics miss, creating a complete picture of technology's real impact on business outcomes.
Why feelings drive business results
Employee sentiment about technology directly influences measurable business performance. Frustrated, confused or unsupported employees become less productive and more likely to leave. Conversely, employees who feel empowered by their technology demonstrate higher productivity, innovation and retention.
Organizations can track these connections through persona-based XLAs that focus on employee segments with the biggest business impact. They can create targeted measurements around critical initiatives:
- Employee onboarding experiences that accelerate time to productivity
- Hybrid office parity ensuring remote and in-office workers feel equally supported
- Digital transformation adoption measuring satisfaction alongside usage
These targeted measurements create something traditional metrics can't: early warning systems for employee experience problems.
Catching problems before they happen
Here's where this dual data approach makes the difference. Instead of discovering problems through help desk complaints, teams spot trouble brewing in employee sentiment scores weeks earlier. Maybe satisfaction dips after a software rollout or specific departments show frustration patterns before productivity metrics reflect the impact.
Organizations using this combined data can step in before small issues become big headaches. They add training when confusion appears, adjust timelines when stress builds or check in with employees whose technology satisfaction suddenly drops. Problems get solved while they're still manageable.
This proactive approach pays off: With employees relying more heavily on technology than ever, organizations that focus on user experience gain advantages in talent attraction, retention and productivity.
Building better employee experiences
Organizations achieving the greatest technology ROI understand that exceptional employee experiences require both working systems and positive feelings. By measuring technology performance and sentiment, you create digital workplace experiences that truly empower your workforce.
Getting started with sentiment measurement requires the right combination of tools, processes and expertise. Some organizations build internal capabilities around employee feedback collection and analysis. Others partner with specialists who can integrate sentiment data with existing IT operations.
Unisys Experience-as-a-Service (XaaS) helps organizations implement this dual-metric strategy by combining technical monitoring with employee sentiment tracking. We work with IT teams to establish XLAs that complement existing SLAs, creating comprehensive views of technology's real impact on business outcomes.
Whether you're just beginning to explore employee sentiment or ready to implement comprehensive experience measurement, the important step is starting the conversation about how your employees actually feel about their technology.
Ready to explore how sentiment measurement could work in your environment? Explore Unisys XaaS or contact us. Our team can help you determine where sentiment measurement fits your goals.
