Your Guide to the Digital Workplace

Technology grows at a remarkable pace, encouraging many businesses to use it to achieve their objectives. Increasingly, companies turn to software to work and collaborate across time zones and organizational divides. Certainly, the digital workplace has become a reality for multiple businesses. But how do we define the digital workplace and how to embrace it effectively across industries?

At a glance:

• What is a digital workplace?
• Why should companies consider embracing the digital workplace?
• Factors when transitioning to a digital workplace
• Benefits of the Digital Workplace
• Drawbacks and Risks of the Digital Workplace
• Digitalization and a Paperless Workplace
• Digital Workplace Trends

What is a digital workplace?

Although there are many definitions of the digital workplace, the consensus is that it describes the use of technology to build a virtual environment where employees can perform their duties.

The digital workplace does not define the location where the operations are conducted. It means that the remote employees on a team do not make up the digital workplace. Rather, the digital workplace is how the work is done — where collaboration, data exchange, knowledge sharing, and communication occurs with technology while complying with policies and regulations.

Therefore, the digital workplace is a combination of strategic planning, management, innovation, governance, and overarching employee experience within the organization. As the term implies, the digital workplace must ensure that organizations can achieve their goals with the help of technology.

These advanced tools helped in furthering the business goals and processes without sacrificing cost and productivity. It is recommended, therefore, to build a digital workplace toolbox that will encompass the domains where you will need support digitally. There are some areas in the toolbox identified which you can assess to determine the tools you will need in the organization.

• Messaging. Ensure a faster way of communicating within the team. This includes e-mails, mobile messaging, chat apps, and micro-blogging.
• Productivity. Provide tools that will help employees in working efficiently, such as meeting software and data analytics.
• Collaboration. Allow employees to work together. These tools are team rooms, video conferencing solutions, and communities.
• Business Applications. Enables employees to access applications online concerning the internal functions of the organizations (e.g.,expense claims, HR systems).
• Crowdsourcing. Supports the ability of the company to gather ideas and inputs from employees through tools like polls, surveys, and forums.

The level of immersion in the digital workplace will be different for every organization, depending on how and which business processes translate into the digital medium.

Why should companies consider embracing the digital workplace?

Similar to any change, shifting to a digital workplace can be difficult if the organization has been used to the traditional ways of doing its tasks. However, as time changes, organizations also have to adapt to these transitions in order to ensure survival and business continuity.

Ease in Bridging the Technology Gap

The most common reason boards or companies are hesitating to embrace digitalization is the fear of accepting change and going through uncertainty. This mostly applies to directors who have doubts about using unfamiliar tools in executing board meetings and responsibilities. But as board members shift their mindsets for the organization’s sake, adopting a digital workplace can reap benefits for them, such as ease in transitioning and adapting to advancements.

To address the fear of the directors in learning new tools, organizations must be able to provide time and effort in choosing the suitable tools for the board’s needs, as well as training. This is a tedious undertaking for companies, but such sacrifice will pay off, as it will become easier to bridge the digital gap within the organization’s dynamics.

Better Employee Experience and Retention

Adopting the digital workplace is a driver for growth for companies. Most people seeking jobs are part of the millennial generation and have been exposed to digital tools. They are considering workplaces they know they can work efficiently. That is why organizations with robust digital workplace solutions are perceived as attractive employers.

Digital workplaces offer a space for employees to execute their tasks effectively and further develop their knowledge and skills — enticing them to stay longer with the company. Boosting employee experience through technology can help these organizations garner more talent and increase employee retention. The digital workplace, therefore, results in higher employee engagement and satisfaction.

Read how else you can further boost employee satisfaction.

Increased Service Availability

Decentralized platforms decrease the risk of data loss and increase service availability. In addition, the consistent delivery of work becomes possible for scattered teams. When traditional on-site solutions and core systems become unavailable, operations may come to a stop. Decentralized platforms, e.g., with multiple servers available across the globe, ensure then that systems are active even when there’s a local disruption.

Gradually shifting to a digital workplace can help in minimizing the risks of halting operations when systems became unavailable. This guarantees not only connection and convenience for the employees but also support and service availability to the clients — increasing customer retention.

More Efficient Paperless Workflows

Using technology to achieve objectives turns workflows increasingly paperless and cost-effective. As traditional ways are replaced with digital processes, there has been a reduced usage for paper — saving waste and effort in printing and manually distributing paper-based files. For example, document sharing acquires a new level of efficiency through smart-and-quick browsing and easier archiving. Using fewer paper results in a growing reduction in printing and a lower need to store documents physically.

Better Navigation when Facing Crises

Accepting digitalization in the workplace has become unforced for organizations because of how the COVID-19 pandemic uncovers the digital gaps. It exposes processes and mechanisms that need automation and optimization. In order to survive the new normal, it is recommended for businesses to reimagine operations by accelerating digitalization. This digital adoption will help organizations grow and thrive, given the consequences of the pandemic.

Overcoming crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic requires organizations to have a clean slate and build new business strategies. In restoring business models, organizations must consider restarting essential business functions, recovering digital solutions, and executing operations efficiently.

Explore how companies have embraced the digital workplace and experienced business victories with these digital transformation success stories.

What are the factors to consider when transitioning to a digital workplace?

Before fully deciding on shifting to a digital workplace completely, the key areas that you should broadly consider are the business model, operations, and the employee experience. With that in mind, here are some factors you should take into account in digitalizing your organization.

Communication

The key to proper employee organization and teamwork is efficient communication. Enterprise social networking tools allow employees to share work-related information and maintain a high level of camaraderie that facilitates collaboration. In the current situation of remote work, it is required to ensure that communication is not disrupted among members and teams.

Building easily accessible and engaging employee social networks helps increase transparency and ensure that all relevant corporate information reaches staff. In establishing the digital workplace post-pandemic, make sure that tools set for communication are seamless, secured, and engaging.

Streamlined communication is critical for employees, as well as senior management and the board. Secure and highly collaborative tools, such as the Convene Board Portal, empower directors to make critical decisions regardless of the location of board members.

Collaboration

Effective collaboration is the backbone of the digital workplace. As the workforce becomes distributed and work hours flexible, one way to ensure high-level productivity is utilizing tools and processes with the use of technology. Because of the shift to remote work, team members have become more reliant on collaborating online. However, to make sure that employee effectiveness will not be sacrificed even when operating remotely, it is best to implement team management strategies. This includes:

• Practicing efficient leadership in the team
• Creating reliable teams
• Establishing conflict management and goal-setting strategies
• Measuring workforce effectiveness

These strategies require digital collaboration tools that can allow efficiency and optimum consistency in work. Specific collaboration tools help employees to share and work on projects and documents. Team leaders can use collaboration tools to create an efficient work culture that is valuable to the management and employees. Convene, Basecamp, GitHub, Asana, or Trello are just some of the many useful software solutions that can aid in collaboration.

Document Management

Companies generate data galore. For example, documents, forms, spreadsheets, code repositories, and videos must be organized and stored effectively to facilitate everyday work. No one wants to waste time and effort in printing, storing, and manually distributing files now and then. Given this, cloud-based document management systems are currently essential tools for information sharing and collaboration.

Organizing and managing data within a document system is now convenient to do, letting companies store all important information in a secure, highly available environment. Sharing and accessing these data can now be efficiently done — preventing wasted effort going through storage boxes to find documents. With the availability of analytics features, many of those systems can help companies streamline workflows.

Microsoft SharePoint Online, Google Drive Suite, or DocuWare Cloud are three powerful document management platforms organizations can use in storing and accessing files.

Project Management

Work and project management tools help organizations identify individual business processes and automate workflows. Apart from considering collaboration among the team, having to automate or digitalize project management leads to cost-effectiveness. To ensure that operations are executed properly and efficiently, managers or team leads must check the workflows and processes of the team or department.

Analytics available within these tools offer valuable insights to project managers, especially in assessing, planning, and delegating tasks. Equipped with detailed information, the management can pick out repetitive processes and further streamline workflows. Companies and individual departments can also create their own frameworks based on distinct business processes to maximize project efficiency and employee productivity.

Security

Organizations and companies have been daunted by the misconception that anything digital or done online is susceptible to breaches and cyberattacks. Even so, there are advancements and platforms that offer a secured environment for your organization’s data and processes.

Especially for boardrooms that discuss and share confidential matters and documents, security is one of the most important elements to consider. Digitizing the boardroom may impose risks and data leaks that would be crucial for the welfare of the board and the company. To mitigate the risks of security threats, companies are called to select only solutions that have robust security features and are certified with the highest security standards.

Explore the digital risks you should know to ensure the security of your digital workplace.

What Are the Benefits of the Digital Workplace?

Completely embracing your new workplace, a digitalized one, could bring you benefits that will offer more value to the organization — in the boardroom, management, and operations. Below are some wins you can get in shifting to a digital workplace.

More Productive and Efficient Workforce

By improving employee engagement through technology that boosts staff experiences and facilitates the collaborative execution of tasks, you can expect increased productivity. In a study by Aruba, 93% of respondents believe that the growing use of technology in the workplace leads to tangible empowerment and efficiency gains. Digital tools and automated processes contribute to cost-effectiveness and lesser wasted efforts.

An efficient digital workplace streamlines administrative tasks and improves employee access to resources and data. In addition, organized workflows enhanced by digital channels aid in information exchange. As a result, employees can work more effectively, achieving organizational goals faster. The digital workplace enables employees to work smart than to work hard — focusing on more important tasks.

Higher Return on Investment

Relative to an efficient workforce, organizations can benefit from transitioning to a digital workplace to save money. Digitalization calls for reduced paper usage, lower staffing costs, and more efficient operations — cutting the expenses of the company in the long run. Furthermore, digital solutions can help empower marketing activities in promoting the products to the new markets and derive insights from analytical tools. These initiatives backed up by digital tools can further sales growth.

With digitalization, ROI can also be experienced in the IT department of the company. Cloud-based software lets companies do away with managing costly legacy infrastructure. Purchasing software in the cloud can be per service and need basis — giving companies flexibility in their IT spending. Integrated tools offer seamless workflows with multi-layer security solutions. Companies can opt for consolidated software when there’s feature overlap, drop redundant tools, and cut costs.

Moreover, because productivity increases with technology and automation, workforce efficiency gains result in a revenue boost. Operational costs also go down when companies digitize business processes.

Better Business Intelligence

Today’s software solutions are equipped with analytics and reporting features, giving businesses a more granular insight into the operations. With multiple digital assets collecting data for visualizations, it becomes easier to draw actionable conclusions. Also, embracing digitalization is valuable in keeping the competitive position of the company while adapting to the changing markets and trends globally.

Data acquired from sources that employees used to perform their daily tasks gives companies insight into the effectiveness of operations, workflows, and business processes. In addition, data can reveal gaps and optimization opportunities that companies can improve to streamline operations.

Tighter Cybersecurity

Fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, the global shift to remote work caused performance issues among many IT teams. Understaffed IT teams struggled to respond to the surge in demand to secure corporate devices. As a result, appropriate security for all digital company assets showed inefficiencies.

However, integrated, AI-based security solutions offer high-level protection that covers all operations conducted online. Furthermore, security patches and updates are automatic because of cloud-based solutions, resulting in better online security. Consequently, less time spent on system management and administration lets IT teams focus on critical security vigilance.

Improved Communication and Employee Engagement

Lack of efficient corporate communication costs businesses around the world on average $62.4 million per year. This results from miscommunicated matters, duplicate tasks, and loss of employee motivation. Adopting a digital workplace can lessen these hurdles and automate communication, leading to increased employee engagement.

By establishing a consistent communication channel that unites all employees and lets everyone communicate freely, companies can relay news, changes, or inquiries. Additionally, the conversations on digital channels are easily archived and available for all employees to review. This ensures transparency and streamlines communication.

Furthermore, employees will be able to gauge their productivity levels and career growth within a digital workplace. As processes and tools optimized tasks and provide them insights to further their tasks efficiently, they are also given extra time to develop their knowledge and skills — leading to faster company growth as well.

What are the drawbacks and risks of digitalizing the workplace?

In as much as the advantages of digitalizing your workplace outweighs the downsides, it is still worthwhile to note these risks. The drawbacks of the digital workplace most often stem from its inadequate adoption.

Reduced Soft Skills

Digital transformation helps companies improve their communications across limitations. Using tools to perform work also directly contributes to improved productivity. However, as employees become versed in online communications, traditional communication can get sidelined.

The benefit of in-person meetings is that they support collaborative teamwork and the innovative nature of collaboration. In addition, there is a lot that can be communicated using body language and physical, on-site interpretation.

Videoconferencing limits much of the non-verbal communication, which can cause slow degradation of soft skills among employees communicating remotely. Moreover, being accustomed to remote communication may result in feeling isolated and unmotivated, especially when confronted during interviews or presentations.

The key to overcome this is equipping digital teams with skilled leaders with soft skills that help employees integrate and collaborate in a virtual environment. Nonetheless, the best leaders for scattered teams know how to ensure high employee engagement and collaboration across digital tools.

Costly Implementation

While the digital workplace offers an increase in revenue in the long term, the switch might be costly initially. In addition, the effective overhaul of business processes to the digital medium can call for numerous investments and changes in policies.

With the changing trends in technology and continuous adoption of companies, switching and upgrading tools may lead to an increase in costs and a decrease in profits. Such switching and upgrading may require additional training for the management and employees.

Finding the right digital solutions is one way to reduce the risks of expensive digitalization. It is recommended to evaluate tools and software that can address the company’s needs and further the business goals.

Read how can you redesign the digital workplace in the new normal.

Cyberattacks

Going digital is always accompanied by cyber risks. The more digital assets a company has, the greater its attack surface. That is why cybersecurity measures have to be implemented well before adopting actual software to limit the number of entry points for hackers.

For example, without proper employee training and security frameworks implemented, hackers might have easier access to data stored on a cloud-based document management system. Integrated security solutions help ensure high-quality, multi-level protection across company resources. Regular employee cybersecurity drills also increase the safety of digital assets.

Overreliance on Technology

Digital transformation and automation of processes can help employees work better and more efficiently. However, when relying on technology for core business processes, operations might come to a halt if critical software solutions become unavailable because of disruption.

For example, if internal systems become unavailable, or there’s a connectivity issue and remote employees can connect to the internal network, remote staff won’t perform their duties.

It’s thus critical to have backup solutions readily available to mitigate the disruption and swiftly resume operations.

Digitalization and a Paperless Workplace

Paper waste has been one of the largest compositions of landfill waste. It has been estimated that an average employee can consume over 10,000 sheets of paper per year. Lesser paper consumption is one advantage of pursuing a digital workplace. Through switching to software solutions and digital tools, businesses can help reduce their paper waste and conserve resources.

Going paperless allows not only your organization to help the environment but also boosts your business dynamics. Here are some benefits of adopting a digital and paperless workplace:

• Easier and access to company information
• Secured storage and maintenance of documents
• Better document sharing and information flow
• Reduced operation costs

Just like any other transition, a paperless workplace has advantages and challenges. A few of the common hurdles of shifting gears include security concerns and preparing all employees. To overcome these impediments, businesses must have a mindful and forward-thinking approach to this adaptation.

Once organizations have fully accepted the switch to a paperless workplace, the next thing that matters is how to make the most out of the shift. Similar to how businesses thrive, you must not go paperless without bullets in your gun — businesses must be able to prepare their employees in implementing this type of workspace. Popular practices for digital workplaces include Bring Your Own Device and multi-factor authentications.

Digital Workplace Trends

Adopting a digital workplace in your organization is not the end of the journey — evaluating the factors, weighing the pros and cons, and preparing the team. Technology is evolving and in order to survive, businesses must readily adapt to changes. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work has sprung rapidly within the digital workplace trends. Therefore, trends to look out for are mostly revolving around the area of remote work.

Here are some of the digital workplace trends to take note of and face moving forward.

• Enhanced virtual meeting experience. As remote meetings are becoming the norm, boards and management are looking for solutions that can boost their experience in meetings — emulating engagement in face-to-face meetings.
• Strengthening cybersecurity. Given the misconception of the vulnerability of digital platforms to cyber risks, organizations are pushing for better cybersecurity strategies that can safeguard confidential information.
• Investing in better connectivity. Remote work mostly relies on a good internet connection to keep operations going. For efficient remote working, employees are deploying 5G services.

Embracing the Digital Workplace to Improve Operations

With proper training, implementation, and leadership, the digital workplace can become a company’s greatest asset. Moreover, digital tools spread over an increasing number of business processes across industries provides noticeable efficiency gains. Ultimately, through technology, companies can save time and resources and extend their capabilities.

Our products and services, such as Convene, could be the solution to advance your digital workplace. Convene can help your company set it up by equipping you with tools for digital collaboration and remote paperless meetings.

If you are interested in how we can integrate Convene into your digital workplace, talk to us and we’ll help you get started.