BUS603: Managing People

The key to success of digital workplaces lies in an effective implementation of a digital workplace strategy, and the first step in this transformation strategy is a cultural change supported by learning measures.

Digital workplace strategy can be understood as the dynamic alignment of an organization's work patterns within the digital work environment to enable peak performance and reduce costs. As each workplace strategy, a digital one supports to fulfill business objectives such as reducing property costs, improving business performance, merging two or more organizations/cultures, and relocating or consolidating occupied buildings. The workplace strategy and its implementation quite often occur at an opportune moment such as a property lease break or a company merger or acquisition.

Some special reasons to build and adopt a digital workplace strategy could be the following:

• Talent attraction: many employees would opt for a lower paying job if they could work out of office, i.e., at home.
• Employee productivity can increase through online social networks.
• Employee satisfaction can be higher by installing and using social media tools internally.
• Employee retention is more stable when employee engagement increases.
• Newer communication tools, particularly instant messaging, are preferred over more traditional ones like e-mail or team workspaces.

Many organizations are convinced about the importance of a digital workplace strategy and invest money in supporting digital workplace strategies that promise ROI. Sure, to support these outcomes, you need to assure for employee's tools they need to collaborate, communicate, and connect with each other. Clear road maps should be created to ensure a digital workplace with measurable business, deliverable, and minimal risks.

• Rapid technology change is enabling a different workplace and work; some examples are artificial intelligence (AI) and big data combined with increasingly available collaboration tools.
• Employees' expectations of a different workplace experience supported by ubiquitous connectivity and rapidly advancing social technologies.
• Citizens demand digital service delivery and a different relationship with the government: There is clear citizen demand for quality online services to match their experiences with other service providers. This requires a digital-first workplace to work effectively.
• Often workplace strategies are developed by specialist workplace consultants, or by an architectural practice. "The successful implementation of a workplace strategy requires an interdisciplinary team, internal and external to the organization. A workplace consultant may be retained to engage the team, help define success criteria, manage the process, and assess results".
• External workplace consultants are professionals from a number of backgrounds: business management, interior design and architecture, building surveying, real estate and facility management, human resources, and building research.

In the file, a proposal for a digital workplace framework is presented with the following layers:

Collaborate, communicate, and connect

The employees should be able to do their job by using digital technologies for collaborating, communicating, and connecting with others. Productive business relationships can be created within and beyond natural work groups and enable knowledge sharing across the organization. In the next part, we develop this issue.

Technology: the digital toolbox

Each organization already has a digital workplace toolbox with different tools to support digital workplace in different ways. It is necessary to adopt the right tools for employees to do their jobs. The digital workplace toolbox can be defined in categories to support the ways in which you communicate, collaborate, connect, and deliver day-to-day services. Often the development of digital tools does not follow a digital workplace strategy where the business focus is clearly defined. Organization culture should be also considered.

Control: governance, risk, and compliance

Some components of digital workplace governance are:

• Guiding principles: identify the business goals to be achieved with the digital workplace, and translate them into guiding principles to drive ongoing development.
• Information governance strategy: determine the focus of digital workplace strategy, and align it with organization's existing information management or information governance strategy.
• Roles and responsibilities: identify key stakeholders, and create a suitable and sustainable interaction model.
• Training and certification: ensure employees have access to training to be prepared to have advantages of digital developments.
• Policy training: in addition to technical training, employees need policy training.
• Orchestrated presence: by organizing channels within the digital workplace.
• Crisis management: if a crisis occurs, react quickly (within the first day).

Business drivers: measurable business value

To deliver the necessary benefits, an organization should guide the direction of digital workplace development.

Some ways to achieve measurable value:

• Increase revenue.
• Reduce operational costs by introducing more effective ways to meet virtually, cutting travel and telecommunication costs and eliminating wasted time at the airport.
• Accelerate time-to-market by using tools to support research and develop, test, and deliver new products and services more quickly.
• Enhance innovation.
• Improve the customer experience.
• Increase agility and flexibility: provide the tools that mimic organization and business changes and reflect employee behaviors.
• Heighten staff satisfaction, i.e., by implementing easy-to-use tools.
• Strengthen talent recruitment and retention.
• Improve employee experience.