A digital workplace is the full set of technology your people use to get through their working day, from email, chat and meetings to the intranet, document storage and the HR system where they check a payslip. The main benefits of getting it right are clearer internal communication, easier knowledge sharing, better collaboration, less time wasted looking for things, and a better day-to-day experience for staff, wherever they work.
You almost certainly aren't starting from scratch. If your staff answer email on their phones, join Teams meetings from home or update the CRM from a customer site, you already have a digital workplace. The question is whether the pieces fit together or whether people are working around them.
For organisations on Microsoft 365, the core of the digital workplace is usually:
The benefits below come from these tools being set up to work together, with clear guidance on what each one is for, rather than from adding more of them.
When everyone knows where to look for news and announcements, communication gets through. A digital workplace lets you set out which channel is used for what: the intranet for company news and policies, Teams for team conversation, Viva Engage for wider communities, and email for anything formal or external.
With that agreed, you can write a communication plan that covers messages to the whole organisation, messages targeted to particular roles or locations, and conversation within teams. SharePoint news can be targeted to specific groups, and it appears in Teams through the SharePoint app in Teams, so frontline staff see it on their phones.
Knowledge tends to sit in inboxes, personal drives and the heads of a few long-serving staff. A digital workplace gives it somewhere to live: SharePoint sites for teams and projects, an intranet for organisation-wide guidance, and search across all of it that only shows people content they are allowed to see.
Permissions and sensitivity labels keep confidential material protected while everything else is shared openly, which is the balance you want. It also matters for AI, because Microsoft Copilot answers from the content a person can access, so well organised, current content gives far better results than a tenant full of duplicates.
Collaboration is where Microsoft 365 is strongest. A project can have its own Teams team with a SharePoint site behind it, where the files, conversations, tasks and meeting notes all sit together. Several people can edit the same document at once, version history records every change, and the site owner controls who has access and at what level.
The same setup works for a team in one office, people working from home, or a group spread across several countries. The tools stop being the thing that gets in the way, and people spend less time emailing attachments back and forth.
When people have the tools and information they need, they can get on with the job you hired them to do. A lot of lost time comes from searching for the latest version of a document, finding the right form or working out who to ask.
A well structured intranet with good navigation, a people directory and sensible search fixes a lot of that. Simple automation helps too: a Power Automate approval flow or a Power Apps form can replace a process that relied on printed forms and chasing emails. These changes also make the organisation quicker to respond, because information moves faster.
The biggest benefit is probably the simplest. When the technology works and people can find what they need, their working day is less frustrating. That shows up in retention, in how quickly new starters get up to speed and in how people talk about the organisation.
It also makes flexible and hybrid working practical. People can do their jobs properly from home, a customer site or a depot, with the same access to news, documents and colleagues as someone in the office. We cover this in more depth in our article on why you need an employee experience platform.
Start with an honest look at what you have. List the tools in use, including the ones IT didn't choose, and ask staff where they lose time. You will usually find overlapping tools, an intranet that hasn't been updated in years, and file storage spread across shared drives, SharePoint and personal OneDrives. Fix the foundations first, then add new capability.
The intranet is one part of the digital workplace. It is the place for company news, policies and links to other systems, whereas the digital workplace covers everything people use, including email, Teams, document storage, business applications and mobile access.
Usually not. If you have Microsoft 365, you already have Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Viva Engage core features and Power Platform capabilities. The work is mainly configuring them well, agreeing what each tool is for and helping people adopt them.
Our pre-built SharePoint intranet costs £12,500 for up to 100 users and £17,500 for up to 500 users, with a quote above that. Involv or Omnia platform licensing is charged per user on top. A custom build takes longer and costs more.
Some improvements, such as tidying Teams and setting up targeted news, can be done in weeks. A new intranet can be live in 4 to 6 weeks with a pre-built option, while a full SharePoint migration from file shares takes longer and typically costs between £20,000 and £50,000.
If you'd like help working out where your digital workplace could be improved, get in touch or read more about our intranet services.