Implementation of a Digital Workplace Strategy

The digital workplace strategy may require a cultural change that needs to be supported by "learning measures". The article points out the benefits of a good digital strategy to the firm. It also discusses the ways that the digital strategy impacts the employees. Be attentive to the digital toolbox and how the digital strategy can be a business driver.

Digital transformation

It is known that the development and proliferation of information and communication technology changed the ways in which employees connect, collaborate, and communicate.

These changes have been accelerated also due to trends like:

Aging workforce and the need to capture their knowledge;
Necessity to meet the varying needs of a multi-generational workforce;
Information overloaded and technology helping employees to find what they need to work faster.

These trends require a digital transformation and a reshaping of the work environment.

Digital transformation can be understood as improved business processes through digital technology. It means better collaboration between staff, efficient collaboration with customers, stronger and more productive relationships with partners, and increased potential by changing work styles.

The main drivers of digital transformation include traditional digital technologies, i.e., infrastructures (i.e., networks, computer hardware) and applications (i.e., apps on smartphones, web applications), and the digital exploitation potentials, i.e., possible digital business models and digital value creation networks.

In the narrower sense, digital transformation often refers to the change process within a company triggered by digital technologies and customer expectations. However, it is a process of change affecting a variety of aspects of our society and does not end up in companies.

Digital transformation in organizations happens in many ways; employees and employers have different hopes:

Managers want:

that their employees work together more effectively to boost productivity;
that their clients are content and to gain new ones through better customer service;
to use digital technologies to minimize costs;
to improve business processes;
to be better than their competitors;
to use digital transformation to remain relevant in the face of the quickening pace of technology advances.

Employees would like:

to work with digital toolsets according to their tasks, experience, and working style;
to have workspaces making possible to collaborate more effectively within their jobs and also due demands to increase productivity and cut costs, making it harder for employees;
to be helped to meet market expectations.

Achieving such goals can be a long and difficult process because digital technology and change management issues influence workplace transformation. Developing and working on a digital workplace strategy can challenge the most forward thinking of business leaders.

There are big differences between organizations referring their digital transformation initiatives:

Some of them develop some strategy and understand the benefits.
Others are still in the early stages of developing a plan not knowing valuable ways about how to go about defining their goals for a digital transformation.