If you’re a baseball fan, you know there’s no place like home [plate.] But if your business is still consuming paper piles or operating on labor-intensive processes, then hitting a home run can be harder than it seems. To knock one out of the park you’ll have to maximize your business outcomes by creating a digital workplace.
Done well, a digital workplace can raise employee engagement, boost workforce efficiency, and above all, create a more data-driven work environment for higher productivity. By ditching your paper processes you can go from being a rookie to a legend!
Below are three recommendations that business leaders should consider when executing a digital workplace strategy according to Gartner:
1. Create a strategy that incorporates technology, human capital and consumer trends
When planning for a digital workforce, taking employee and consumer trends into consideration is important, as these days, technology has become intertwined with both. Almost every job description today has technological requirements, and their reliance on technology will only increase with time. In a wide variety of industries and departments, hiring technologically savvy employees is not just preferable, but imperative.
From a consumer perspective, apps, social media, and web services have all but taken over our daily lives. We thrive off “anytime, anywhere” access, and we enjoy learning about these technologies and rarely need professional help to operate them. This gives consumers a vast world of information and awareness they previously did not have access to.
Because technology is now heavily integrated with both business and consumer relationships, organizations that can effectively leverage it in conjunction with both will thrive in the digital economy.
2. Identify projects that are underway to promote a digital workforce, and nurture early successes there
This approach is the perfect combination of mixing the average businessman with the everyday consumer. Taking business initiatives that create work efficiencies and incorporating a consumerized approach is a great way to engage your employees and start digitizing your workplace. According to Gartner, 30 percent of organizations will formalize workforce digital literacy strategies to improve business outcomes and employee engagement by 2018.
Examples include:
- Allowing employees to use their personal devices at work.
- Migrating to a cloud platform to access real-time communications and social networks.
- Deploying mobile EFSS applications to increase employee mobility and content sharing.
3. Senior business executives should create an alignment with HR and IT
Initiating a close IT/HR partnership to coordinate projects, changing demographics, changing roles and job skills, and organizational structure will help to ensure alignment with business goals. Gartner predicts that 50 percent of IT will support assets and services outside their IT service portfolio by 2018.
HR has the ability to facilitate organizational change, so it only makes sense to align executive goals with HR. They also often control corporate training, so if both HR and IT are on the same page, executing a digital workplace strategy will look the same across all departments. Gartner predicts that 20 percent of organizations will include employee engagement improvement as a shared performance objective for HR and IT groups by 2020.
For more information on taking your digital workplace strategy from first base to home plate, connect with one of our business process experts below!
