BUS603: Managing People

The emerging digital workplace, considered the natural evolution of the workplace, can address issues listed above and help organizations.

The digital workplace includes all digital technologies and services people use to get work in today's workplace - both which already exist and ones to be implemented. It ranges from HR applications and core business applications to email, instant messaging, and enterprise social media tools, and virtual meeting tools.

Frank Schönefeld defines the digital workplace as the "totality of the required access infrastructure, applications and device platforms of information or knowledge workers who need them to perform their work tasks and engage in collaboration".

Digital workplaces could:

• support changes in working styles enabling employees to work more transparently and better use social networks.
• unify offline and online communications by keeping employees connected through their mobile devices to provide anywhere, anytime access to tools and corporate information.
• focus on employee experience by providing them with user experience they have outside the firewall. They provide choice, flexibility, and personalization.
• support virtual work environments that allow employees to stay connected in distributed and virtualized work locations while balancing customer privacy and operational risk.
• minimize spending and enhance productivity by providing employees with the right tools and right information at the right time.
• win the war on talent by offering the progressive and innovative environments that top candidates now.
• Digital workplace as a portal is "a solution for the integration of information and services in a common user interface" because different services and components are combined in one user interface and made available to the user mostly web-based.

Integrated data can be used via interfaces in different applications. Users can combine existing data and create new applications based on it.

The conception and deployment of the workplace are among the key strategic activities for the European Commission in the years to come. The digital workplace initiative is also an important part of the ICT chapter of the 2016 Synergies and Efficiency Review.

The digital workplace initiative will provide staff with the right IT tools, platforms, and services, enabling users to work and collaborate anywhere, anytime with a fit-for-purpose security and optimizing their work experience and productivity. It will be adaptive and flexible to incorporate different types of users, new behaviors, and new technologies.

Within the conceptual framework underpinning the digital workplace initiative in the Commission staff is at the center, with a particular focus on the excellence of user experience. A staff member should be able to connect anywhere and at any time, through a simple and secure authentication mechanism, on a variety of mobile devices to a number of corporate services. The data will be stored on a hybrid cloud model, ranging from on-premise (European Commission Datacenters) to public clouds depending on the classification of the data.

The six strands of the digital workplace initiative are:

• A balanced mix of mobile devices, either corporate or BYOD, allowing connection from anywhere and at any time. There are constraints about using corporate tools on private devices and vice versa, but they may be resolved with a good compromise between usability and security.
• Office automation comprising supported operating systems, word processors, spreadsheets, presentation-authoring tools, access to files, etc. An architecture enabling hybrid services becomes progressively more important especially when the mobile dimension perspective is incorporated.
• Mail and calendaring, including the central role of email and its tight integration with calendar tools as a way to send messages, share information, and manage time and meetings.
• Unified communication encompasses different sources of real and near-real-time communication, which include videoconferencing and the future of telephony (telephony becomes an app, the classical telephone is replaced by the single mobile device).
• Collaboration and social networking, covering the main aspects of collaboration (from document to tasks), communities, and social networking, with special attention on their right availability, security, and integration in mobile platforms. Fast access to the relevant information is an essential in the digital workplace. Therefore information management and corporate search, as very strong integration elements, will be part of this component.
• Integration and identity and access management. The future digital workplace will be based on a hybrid platform with a combination of on-premise and cloud-based solutions to take the maximum benefit of technology development and to allow mobility.

By implementing the digital workplace initiative in the European Commission, it is intended to realize the following objectives:

• Increase staff engagement. Engage employees and raise motivation through an effective, efficient digital workplace.
• Increase staff productivity. Allow productivity improvements by providing the most suitable and effective digital workplace to each staff member.
• Enable a more modern and efficient office space design.
• Staff from many organizations already use many digital components, i.e., responding to emails from smartphones, checking their payments online, or digitally pursuing a sales opportunity, so that organizations do not have to build the digital workplace from the ground up.

In the coming years, the workplace continues to evolve, and employee expectations shift so that organizations that do not embrace digital workplace risk falling behind.