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6 Key Dimensions of a Digital WorkplaceMeghan M. Biro, Founder and CEO of TalentCulture

4 6 Key Dimensions of a Digital Workplace

An effective digital workplace acts as a nervous system that offers a full spectrum of functions. It’s a way to empower today’s workplace — from organization to workforce and from clients to collaborating entities — to communicate and check in; to access, share, and research; to archive information; and to work with anyone, anywhere, on any screen, at any time. To get things done.

Digital transformation can be end to end… Saying a digital workplace is fully functional is one thing, but creating it is another. It needs to reach outside the confines of the organization and be agile enough to accommodate new needs and pressures as they arise. It needs to be customized in terms of look and feel. And it should be scalable, because we’re never going to stop growing our businesses. If a digital workplace is iterative, it won’t be able to keep pace, and it will stop providing the functionality we need to stay competitive as we grow and change.

… or it can supplement existing digital spacesOne size does not fit all when it comes to digital workplaces. Organizations and employees have a range of business challenges and existing solutions. If there’s a specific set of problems that needs solving, a digital workplace can be shaped to work with what’s not broken as well.

In fact, the best solution for some organizations may be enhancing and expanding their existing digital space. Digital workplaces need to be purposeful, and they shouldn’t require organizations to abandon existing value or reduce their ROI to gain value and function.

This is key: if the tech is right for you, it will deliver the business results you need without requiring you to replace what already works.

The Digital WorkplaceAn explosion of fast-paced digital and technological innovations have not only transformed the way we live, but also changed our expectations of the way we work. Today’s organizations need to be able to carry out all key functions in the digital space, including communication, collaboration, knowledge management, and employee engagement. Each of these has a profound impact on productivity, innovation, and competitive advantage, no matter the size or nature of the enterprise.

This sea change in the nature of work offers tremendous opportunity. But maximizing that opportunity requires not just a leap of faith, but a leap of culture — what Deloitte calls “The Big Shift.” Even for businesses that have little to do with technology, tech is at the center and the forefront. A recent survey of Fortune 500 CEOs found that the rapid pace of technological change was cited as the single biggest challenge facing their companies.

Introduction

Regardless of their business, 67% of the CEOs said they now consider their company to be a technology company.

It’s the ideal time to shift our understanding of the workspace as well: from physical to digital. Meetings have evolved from conference room to screen, for instance, and the workplace has moved towards a hybrid ecosystem of personal apps and IT-sanctioned solutions. If executed properly, these changes can catalyze a company to a new level of productivity in a sophisticated and multi-functional digital workplace. It can radiate out from a single hub, or be connected at key touchpoints to existing channels.

Intranets from earlier years, and even many intranets today, have failed in their attempts to provide this unification. Purposeful digital workplaces — ones that employees will love to use — must be tailored to the specific business challenges people confront every day.

6 6 Key Dimensions of a Digital Workplace

In fact, only 38% of all companies are still functionally organized. Companies are regrouping from top-down departments divided by functions to smaller, handier, cross-functional teams.

We’re seeing a profound shift to decentralizing authority, with organizations based on product and customer. Dynamic, networked workplaces may assemble teams of talent from all over the world — designers in Beijing, managers in New York, support staff in London and Houston. All work together closely: communicating, collaborating, and coordinating. But to do this, they need a truly accessible, highly functional digital workplace.

Designing for Employee ExperienceEven in the face of new waves of technological innovations (such as AI, cognitive computing, and robotics) coming faster than we imagined they could, and even in the face of a global economy that exists in the digital sphere, work begins and ends with people. It was Ben Bernanke (former chairman of the Federal Reserve) who said, “No economy can succeed without a high-quality workforce, particularly in an of era of globalization and technological change.”

The real challenge we face now, however, is enabling the new workforce to function within the context of this new era. We’re in the midst of a talent crunch, when engagement and retention are an endlessly debated part of business — for good reason.

The average tenure of an employee in the United States is shrinking — from 4.6 years in 2014 to 4.2 years in 2016. And most of us are always looking for greener grass: about 75% of job applicants are already employed.

A New Way of WorkingA digital workplace for today and tomorrow should address the needs and behaviors of a new world of work and a new kind of workforce, harnessing powerful tools for a growable, scalable, flexible digital working environment. The workforce today is more diverse than ever — in ways it’s never been before:

Deloitte’s 2017 Global Human Capital Trends report noted that 92% of companies are prioritizing a possible redesign of their organization.

Part 1

Even the smallest start-ups work with other companies, talent, or consultants outside their walls.

It encompasses widely varying groups, cultures, languages, and skillsets.

It may include staff who don’t even work in the office, but telecommute, working on the road or from home. Amazon recently announced that it plans to hire 5,000 people to work from home; more firms are heading in this direction as well.

It’s made of multiple generations, from Baby Boomers to Millennials to Generation Z.

8 6 Key Dimensions of a Digital Workplace

A New Common GroundWith workplace trends driving people apart and a growing crisis in talent retention, organizations need a purposeful digital destination that unifies and engages employees. We need to create comfortable work environments that embrace the behaviors and habits of different generations — Gen X, for instance, manage their day based on their inbox, while Gen Y, who grew up in an atmosphere of endless digital exchange and collaboration, is used to carrying on multiple conversations across multiple channels. Gen Z assumes they will be able to be perpetually connected — to each other, to the workplace, and to the larger world — via any device.

If a digital workplace can accommodate all these needs, we not only enable employees to work together with ease and efficiency, we drive a stronger, better employee experience. We also can achieve a positive impact on engagement, retention, and ROI. And when infused with the look and feel of the employer brand, a digital workplace is a powerful and organic driver of alignment as well.

A recent SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) survey found that only 7% of employees were “very satisfied” with their jobs.

Almost 80% of executives rated employee experience very important (42%) or important (38%).

Just 22% of executives considered their companies excellent at building a differentiated employee experience.

SHRM also found that millennials prefer a workplace that offers “openness, equality, community, and purpose.” This culture of inclusion has a downside: without it, millennial employees may not feel the emotional connection — and alignment — with their employer that motivates them to stay.

Nothing will disengage employees faster than a bad employee experience — which in this digital era is going to involve technology, one way or the other. Well-designed digital workplaces enable us to communicate, collaborate, and function at peak productivity. Badly designed — or not designed at all — it has the opposite effect.

As we work throughout the day, we experience a whole series of moments and touchpoints. We’re working across numerous locations, jumping from one function to another, or constantly multitasking. Chat to text to email, mobile to desk to tablet, microblog to file sharing, brainstorming to remote conferencing: does our digital environment provide a vibrant, connected, positive experience?

This employee experience (EX), which Deloitte’s 2017 HR trends report called “the new contract between employer and employee,” is the critical driver of engagement and retention. But less than a fourth of the executives polled in Deloitte’s study think they’re doing it right.

10 6 Key Dimensions of a Digital Workplace

1 Knowledge and Work Product Management

For today’s organizations, knowledge is currency. They need a central location to retain information, knowledge, and work product. Accessible to users yet still secure, it’s a digital library that can be organized to mirror departments, projects, teams, or divisions across an organization. A key benefit of the Cloud is that it enables knowledge to stay put — even when its creators depart.

Additionally, organizations need a digital storehouse for operational documents and information, including policies and procedures, employee handbooks, and information on compliance. Once safely stored and centralized, files can be authored and edited, compared, archived, labeled, indexed, and, of course, easily searched.

Part 2

The 6 DimensionsWhat are the biggest factors in building digital workplaces that provide a “differentiated employee experience”? How can companies create productive, flexible, social, and highly functional environments? It’s essential to approach it strategically: to identify the gaps and needs rather than create a solution from scratch. Find out exactly what employees at all levels of the organization want and need, and then deploy purpose-built solutions that address these challenges. Avoid iterative fixes that can’t scale as the organization grows. Focus on functionality, and build digital workplace solutions across six pillars:

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3 Collaboration

In a physical workplace, it’s simple to team up in whatever form a project requires. Co-authoring, file sharing, coordinating calendars, and managing task punch lists are all a given in a traditional work environment.

But in the digital space, collaboration needs to be carefully designed. Effective digital workplaces make it simple and seamless to work together across any divide. Beyond co-authoring and file sharing, the best digital workplace solutions provide a hub that brings people, information, and conversations together. They also create custom virtual areas for workgroups, teams, and other collaborating entities. These gathering areas have all the features of the larger digital workplace, just in a smaller form — a mini project space with its own navigation tools and permissions.

4 Social Engagement

In a landmark study of intranets in Finland, six “megatrends” were identified — including social elements that could be integrated into every function and element. In this highly social digital ecosystem, dedicated spaces allow people to recognize and reward each other as teammates and peers.

The Finnish study noted that by strategically managing the social points of contact in a digital workplace, an organization can drive further engagement and alignment. When employees can share opinions and knowledge, offer comments, craft their own profile, and publish their own content, they act as influencers within their own sphere. In essence, employees become as socially engaged in their digital workplace as they might on other social media. Adding a data mining function also provides feedback to the organization (such as content that receives “likes” and ideas that resonate).

2 Communication and Community

To meet the needs of the new workforce, a digital workplace should offer many ways to communicate. Employees should be able to connect across any platform with the same capabilities and functions — whether it’s during informal moments, across groups, or at formal meetings and conferences. The importance of this easy, open communication lies in the sense of community it supports.

Overcoming logistical, social, and cultural hurdles is a key challenge. In Harvard Business Review’s “Global Teams That Work,” HBS professor Tsedal Neeley noted that communication is not just a matter of defaulting to immediate contact, but about carefully and strategically managing forms of communication to meet contexts:

The choice of what channels to use depends on factors such as different time zones, languages, the dynamics of those involved, and the objective of the communication — for example, is it to persuade or just review, delegate or check in? Common ground also means complex considerations. But first the digital platform must be able to support whatever choice is right for the working context.

A digital workplace solution that’s compatible with existing conversational environments, such as Slack, is one answer. Optimal communication is also about galvanizing community, empowering “voices” within the organization to express themselves and share news via microblogs, forums, chats, groups, etc. One innovative and empowering community-builder is a “virtual town hall,” which functions as an event organizer, an interactive repository for the content that comes out of the event, and a shared and ongoing dialogue.

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6 Support, Flexibility, and Growth

The digital workplace is not a plug, play, and leave scenario. As a reflection, extension, and functional core of an organization, it needs to be able to grow and evolve to fit changing needs. But scalability is not just a unilateral movement. It’s a matter of being able to integrate with existing applications, widgets, and processes, while having the ability to step in and offer a replacement function if necessary.

To enable further efficiency and continuity, digital workplace platforms can integrate with critical apps such as: SFDC, HRIS systems, employee recognition, IT ticketing, Office 365, Google Suite, etc. This helps facilitate workflows and creates a single hub for all work.

There are countless reasons not to replace existing tools, and a digital workplace platform should be able to accommodate solutions that already work well. Some enterprises may need to maintain status quo for ROI, or to meet the needs of older generations in the workforce (or clients and partners who prefer interfacing with existing software and tools). It’s important to remember that in tech, compatibility is as much an emotional as a financial or functional issue for most people. And a well-constructed, multifaceted digital workplace is first and foremost about making it possible for people to do their best work.

Some organizations resist adopting new digital workplace solutions because they don’t believe they’ll receive adequate technical support. Even when their existing solutions are scattered and disconnected, they don’t want to be left in the dark with a new platform. Best-of-class companies offer a high standard of responsive support for their products, with regular pulse-taking and systems check-ups. There’s no reason to accept anything less.

5 Security

The internet is porous, and so too can be our digital work environments. Recent phishing incursions into Google Drive sent some teams scrambling to protect their own contact lists, pointing to the critical need for security.

A digital workplace — whether within the organization, or expanded to allow access for clients and partners — needs powerful security features. Key security features include user authentication and identity assurance, data loss prevention and disaster recovery, sophisticated encryptions, and the ability to set rules on content and use. Further, employee data and privacy need to be fully protected.

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As the company grows, so too can its digital workplace. Hulu continues to maintain a collaborative approach with Igloo to craft an innovative change strategy to influence their road map, shifting functions and emphasizing features showing the most popularity.

The lessons in Hulu’s highly successful digital transformation:

1. Engage leaders early to show them how the project benefits the entire organization.

2. Leverage your high performers in the effort.

3. Pay close attention to your timeline and maintain reasonable goals for launch.

4. Identify (or define) your organizational culture — and work to make sure your digital workplace solution reflects it.

5. Infuse the entire digital workplace solution, including its social functions, with the look and feel of the brand.

6. Check-in with the audience and revisit through focus groups and survey outreach.

7. Make sure the solutions are scalable.

Part 3

Digital Workplaces that WorkLet’s dive into a couple of case studies. These are enterprises who galvanized their workplaces with powerful digital workplace solutions. They illustrate how different organizations can meet their unique needs with the same platform by configuring and branding its look and feel to their own requirements. Both companies solved organizational challenges with purpose-built solutions.

HuluHulu was evolving from a hungry startup and wanted to consolidate functions and communication. During a shift in leadership, it capitalized on a climate of renewal to revive its commitment to a centralized nervous system. It polled its own employees (Hulugans) to come up with six main buckets of core needs and wants:

• Centralized information

• Editorial video

• All-in-one search

• Contacts

• Event calendar

• Open social platform

Hulu worked with Igloo to create a digital workplace that was fully branded and reflective of the company’s collaborative, creative, informal and celebrated culture. They called it Huluverse. The transition was fast, with a strong emphasis on social features — including Hulu clubs — to drive team engagement and collaboration designed to support a company in growth mode.

Hulu’s new internal ecosystem addressed the need for a central home page destination — as opposed to a “patchwork quilt” of functions. Hulu wanted to enable its Hulugans to search and find information easily from one location. Their digital workplace also offers unique and vital features such as a fertile and high-traffic system of blogs and microblogs (with notifications that stream through emails), a highly visible and easy to use Wiki, drag-and-drop widgets, as well as the ability to share and curate editorial video content. A personalized experience includes a dynamically populated Hulugan photo wall gallery on the home page, made up of expressive black and white photos of Hulugans across all offices. Each component and function works in all locations, and on all channels and platforms—in many cases, users are delivered a customized browsing experience that is relevant to their office and job function.

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It set out to transform its digital communication platform, building it within the larger context of a broader digital workplace initiative. The result was a collaboration between Igloo and ENMAX’s corporate communications and IT teams. Together, they leveraged the power of designated influencers who acted as the first wave of users, testing and promoting the new tools.

The platform was branded as Intramax, maintaining its original intranet name. It allowed far more streamlined communications, enabled accessibility to information on mobile devices, gave employees the ability to subscribe to interesting content, offered collaborative spaces for teams and outside collaborators, improved searchability, improved amount and timeliness of the information being shared and was infused at all touchpoints with the organization’s core values and leadership goals.

Intramax grounded each function within the ethos of company brand. It enabled everyone to have the ability to recognize, reward, and share successes and learnings. The value began with the launch, as employees shifted from outside emailing via Outlook to internal communications. Since then, a sense of community and openness has infused the workplace.

What we see in these two cases are very different organizations that have leveraged the same digital workplace platform, customizing solutions to meet their own needs. In each case, the teams tasked with developing a new digital workplace built internal support and gained traction among interested, influencer employees. This facilitated an awareness of problems to be solved and enabled a gradual, measured, and seamless transition.

For both companies, the bottom line was people: improving social and communication functions, making interactions generate meaningful data, enhancing the sense of culture and alignment, and bringing the workforce – no matter where it’s located – together.

ENMAXENMAX, an electricity provider headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, with offices and generation plants spread throughout mid and southern Alberta, has a staff of 2,500, which includes employees and contractors in both field and office. Its aim was to create a more fluid, timely and social way for employees to access information, and it wanted to leave behind its original intranet: a corporately branded, HTML-based, limited and static platform that offered one-way communication. With these outdated systems, ENMAX had few opportunities to glean data insights on what resonated with its employees.

About IglooIgloo helps organizations create a digital destination where employees can access the information, tools, and expertise they need to do their best work, from wherever they are.

Copyright 2008-2017 Igloo Inc. All rights reserved. All other company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

About Igloo

Igloo provides digital workplace solutions that help organizations improve communication, collaboration, knowledge management and culture & engagement across the organization to increase productivity and innovation.

Learn more at:

igloosoftware.com info@igloosoftware.com 1 877 664 4566

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Conclusion

We can’t ignore the forces causing the fundamental shift in the workplace today. The deepening generation gap, increasing use of personal devices and apps, growing fragmentation of the workforce, and an intensifying talent war are affecting organizations of all shapes and sizes.

The right digital workplace solution can bring everyone back onto the same page. By delivering a positive employee experience, it can boost alignment, engagement, and retention. And by centralizing knowledge management and collaboration tools in one easy-to-access hub, it can optimize workflows and increase productivity.

But to build a cohesive digital workplace, you need a partner and a platform you can trust, one that’s successfully worked with thousands of organizations. Together, you’ll build a thriving digital workplace that transcends all borders and boundaries.