I have recently been reading Jane McConnell’s report ‘The Digital Workplace in the Connected Organization‘. You will have to go a long way and use a lot of effort to find another research report that will be as interesting, insightful and better value for money. If you haven’t bought a copy then please consider seriously doing so.
What is new this year?
The Digital Workplace Scorecard
The main innovation is the Digital Workplace Scorecard, which is based on the nine dimensions of the digital workplace model described in this report. The Scorecard works from self-assessment: scores are calculated based on several hundred data points from the responses to the online survey questions.
All participants receive (privately) their own scorecard and can compare themselves to others in their industry by looking at the industry-specific scorecards or to the Early Adopters. All industry scorecards are published in the report.
The digital workplace in the context of the organization
This year’s report represents a major step forward in understanding how the digital workplace impacts and is impacted by organizational processes, structures, leadership, culture and mindset. The survey covered these points in addition to the traditional questions about people capabilities, mobile services, finding expertise, sharing knowledge and so on.
Twenty-three “In Practice” Cases
“The Digital Workplace in the Connected Organization” contains 23 “In Practice” cases that are developed in more detail than in previous years. The organizations selected for these cases stood out during the data analysis process, either because of high scores or because their comments and examples are relevant to challenges many organizations are facing today.
There are so many great insights and highlights that I was spoilt for choice on what to write about. Three highlights for me are:
Mindset
Jane identifies this as a critical factor defined as ‘the values, expectations and ways of thinking that determine how people and organizations act’. My experience with intranets successfully transforming into digital workplaces requires senior managers to lead and encourage employees to change their way of working. Even more important is for senior managers to demonstrate by example how they are using it to help themselves for employees to follow.
just starting
Many organisations have just started to adopt digital workplace ways of working. Many of my clients are in this position. Factors like access to real-time information, finding out information from people you don’t know and resilience when bad weather or other problems can affect service. Adopting the digital workplace can help to remove these major business issues with benefits of improved customer service and productivity savings.
mobile
As Jane says in her report ‘People are increasingly deciding how they want to work and which tools suit them best regardless of corporate policies.’ with organisations recognising this as becoming the new reality with many employees saying they are ‘discouraged but accepted’ when using personal devices for their work. To me that feels like a major shift from a year ago and one of my 2014 predictions.
Overall this research can be referred to many times as you continue your jouney to a fully integrated digital workplace for your organisation.