The digital workplace encompasses the entire suite of technology your employees use to get through their day. It can range from your current ERP system, instant messaging software, or even virtual meeting rooms. Most organisations will already be utilising several elements so it’s unlikely you will be building your digital workplace from scratch. In fact, if your employees currently respond to emails from their mobile devices, check their wage slip online or update your CRM system with a new opportunity, you may be closer than you think to operating an engaging digital workplace.
In this article, we discuss five benefits your business can experience from embracing a digital workplace.
1. Streamlined internal comms
Using technology efficiently means you can reach your staff more efficiently. Within your digital workplace, you can incorporate different channels of communication that allow for a unified, consistent messaging as well as leaving space for personalised messaging where appropriate. You can, therefore, set a communication plan that allows your employees to communicate with their team, their direct managers, and senior management in the most appropriate and effective means possible.
2. Effective knowledge sharing
The digital workplace can enable businesses to collate the entirety of its knowledge in a single, easily accessible location with semantic search functionality. It can unite information whilst maintaining security with strict user permissions and inbuilt data protection. This enables knowledge sharing across the organisation that breaks down existing data silos and creates opportunities for knowledge sharing.
3. Seamless collaboration
With streamlined communication and effective knowledge sharing, you are creating a workplace designed to empower collaboration. Whether it’s within a team in your office, between employees working at home, across functions, or even across countries, a digital workplace enables collaboration rather than standing in the way of it.
Through the utilisation of tools like SharePoint, you can create individual sites for individual projects. All the knowledge required for project delivery can be stored here and your administrators can decide who requires access, as well as the level of access they require. Multiple team members can work on the files stored here, they can make and track changes simultaneously. Set tasks for team members and share updates via chat, shared notebooks and other collaborative tools.
4. Increased productivity and the ability to work agile
When your team has all the tools they need, they can focus on the job you hired them to do. One of the main benefits of a digital workplace is you reduce the time it takes for your employees to find the information they need to perform.
The easy access to the right communication and collaboration tools promotes agile working, making the organisation quicker to react to change, regardless of their size.
5. Enhanced employee experience
Potentially the greatest benefit of embracing a digital workplace is providing an outstanding employee experience. With the right technology in place, an employee’s life can be that much easier, improving their overall satisfaction and reducing unnecessary frustration.
With the right digital workplace, employees can do their jobs more effectively from anywhere, vital for employees now but potentially vital for employers going forward. Remote workers are 50% more likely to stay with their current employers than those that are forced to commute to work, meaning you spend less on recruitment.
If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of embracing a digital workplace or three common challenges you may face when attempting to deploy one, join us on the 27th of August for our webinar.