Becoming a digital workplace is more than downloading apps, automating HR functions, or adopting communication tools.
While these are core components of a digital workplace, there has to be a well-thought-out strategy to accompany adoption that benefits every level of your company.
When a digital workplace is implemented as an intentional business solution it delivers results, like a high performing workforce, that makes your company more competitive.
As you design your digital workplace strategy you need to know:
- Your company’s weak spots and inefficiencies.
- Any roadblocks in the way of your digital workplace success.
- The roadmap of your company’s vision and objectives.
- What your employees need to be successful in their work.
Like any business strategy, the goal of building a digital workforce is to bring better business returns. A digital workplace will improve the performance of individual business components, like productivity, efficiency, and employee engagement, that will collectively boost your bottom line.
Here are the core building blocks for a successful digital workplace strategy:
A Digital Workforce Ready to Embrace Change
By the end of 2019, companies around the world will spend $1.7 trillion going digital. For their strategy to be successful, organizations need buy-in at all levels, from frontline workers to middle managers to CEOs.
Employees will support your digital movement when you’ve established a company culture based on adaptability and innovation.
Without employee adoption of the digital workplace, there will be gaps in communication, operational inefficiencies, and stagnant growth.
When your workforce aligns with your company culture, they’ll buy into your vision. Access to the same data in real time will create a unified team that works collaboratively, communicates effectively, and moves in the same direction.
If your team needs an extra push to adopt your digital workplace vision, try these hints on how to get internal buy-in and everyone on board.
The Right Communication Tools for How Your Employees Work
Determine what digital features your workforce demands. You need communication tools that complement how they work, make their jobs easier, and maximize their productivity.
For businesses with a deskless workforce, like a hotel or healthcare facility, look for a team app designed for mobility.
The digital workplace should not be a patchwork of apps and programs stitched loosely together creating data silos and interrupted, inefficient workflows that further fractures a dispersed workforce.
An operational communication platform with custom integrations allows a company’s apps and legacy systems to live in a unified communications infrastructure. It gives your workforce an easy way to collaborate and have access to all the tools and information they need.
Digital Leaders to Design, Roll Out, and Manage Your Plan
Identify and promote a visionary to helm your digital workforce transformation. From design to implementation to the day-to-day management of your communication tools and team app, your digital leader will handle the logistics and be the point person for your company.
Of equal importance, this individual should be a champion of both your brand and your chosen communication tool to drive employee engagement with the new technology.
This digital leader might be someone you hire from the outside, or a rising star you’ve cultivated from within your workforce.
Here are the qualities a digital leader should possess:
- An influencer and team player who colleagues respect, who drives employee engagement.
- Ability to make data-driven decisions using the analytics of the team app to drive success.
- Strategic risk-taker skilled in the art of disruption and navigating a team through it.
Make Employees The Communicators
There’s plenty of innovative, inventive and creative internal communication ideas that can arise out of a focus on getting employees involved in creating communications – which can go a long way in increasing employee engagement.
By allowing employees to create their own content for the new channel, the employer demonstrates a commitment to the employee experience, as well as putting the bottom line at the heart of the launch process.
It’s also a good idea to get employees communicating with each other. You could set up an internal blog, where employees from across the organisation post mini updates on what’s been happening in their department that week (this would help to keep remote employees engaged and up-to-speed too).
Plus, as humans now have shorter attention spans than goldfish (or maybe not), employees want their news to be even more bite-size – think 60-second videos, BuzzFeed-style listicles, infographics, and even animated gifs – and hyper-relevant.
Measuring Digital Workplace ROI
Before you set out on your journey to build a digital workforce, determine the benchmarks you want to measure the success of your strategy.
Employee engagement is your canary in the coal mine and the most important indicator of the health of your company. Companies lose an accumulated $7 trillion in productivity due to low employee engagement.
Track engagement and adoption of your digital workplace through your communication tool’s analytics dashboard.
If those numbers are climbing you’ll see other positive results, like higher output and production speed, more innovation, and, your ultimate goal, great returns.
To learn how to launch your digital workplace strategy download our White Paper - “Digitalization of the Non-Desk Workforce.”
