Digital workplace environment benefits examples
April 2, 2013 at 8:10 am | Posted in benefit, best practice, digital workplace, research, value | 2 CommentsTags: benefit, best practice, digital workplace, research, value
This is the last in my series of posts showing examples of the savings organisations have made by shifting work to a digital workplace and new ways of working. It draws on my previous posts on how you need to plan your strategy, governance, and management of content, tools, and services for a digital workplace. This is essential to transform your intranet into a digital workplace. My previous posts in this series have covered productivity savings, reduced absenteeism, reduced staff turnover, and property costs savings.
I will be using examples from the Digital Workplace Group‘s report ‘What is the financial value of investing in digital working?‘ that show what organisations taking the right approach can achieve. This example covers how changing to new ways of working can improve your organisation’s green reputation and have a good impact on the environment.
How to reduce the environmental impact
Governments, organisations, and people are realising more what their impact on the environment can be. More importantly there are options we can take which can reduce the impact we have by changing our behaviour to work. Simply we can now bring our work to us more rather than have to travel to it. So, as well as striking a better work/life balance we can also reduce our impact on the environment by:
- not commuting to work
- video and conference calls with other people instead of every meeting being face to face
- less office space to be heated and lit
- when travelling is necessary, doing it outside of peak commuting hours if possible
- using collaboration tools that replicate what used to happen when people were in physical workplaces
What organisations can achieve
- Reducing environmental impact is a key factor of an organisation’s Corporate and Social Responsibilities commitments.
- If US employees with compatible jobs and a desire to work from home did so half the time, it is estimated the nation could cut its Persian Gulf imports by 47%. The greenhouse gas impact would be equivalent to taking the entire New York State workforce off the road. (Wow!)
- Reducing an organisation’s liability to environmental taxes and penalties by changing behaviour.
- Significant savings can be achieved through reduction in business travel. For example: Ernst & Young (£2.5m a year) and Cisco ($10.3m a year).
- Digital workplace technology has the potential significantly to reduce the negative environmental impact of organisations.
Examples
- During 2010, consolidation enabled Hewlett Packard to close 16 data centres and 447 computer labs and reduce floor space by around 12,000 square metres, while maintaining HP’s presence in all the world’s major regions and their ability to support customers worldwide. In turn, HP estimates that this consolidation avoided 260,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2) emissions.
- Through its award winning flexible working programme, in 2009/10 Ernst & Young avoided 6.8m air miles from using video-conferencing facilities. And in 2010/11, it achieved a 24% reduction in distance travelled by road per head, and a 15% reduction in CO2 emissions per head, compared with 2006/07. It also achieved a 5% reduction in distance travelled by rail and CO2e emissions per head in 2010/11 compared with 2006/07. Its flexible working strategy has been supported by a £650,000 initial investment while the potential annual direct cost savings from business travel avoidance is £2.5m.
- In its 2010 CSR report, Cisco makes an explicit link between using collaboration solutions internally (principally WebEx and telepresence) to host a staggering 19.3m hours of virtual meetings. This represents an annual saving of 47,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year and a general reduction of 12% of Cisco’s output in greenhouse gases since 2007.
- Capgemini’s carbon emissions have fallen by 12.6% since 2008 as a result of its TravelWell programme, which included providing technology alternatives to non-essential travel. It has also achieved WWF UK’s ‘One in Five Challenge’ (reducing business flights by 20% in five years). A founder sponsor of the challenge, Capgemini achieved this in the first year, reducing flights by 4,508.
I hope these posts have made you pause and think about how you can help your own organisation. You can contact me if you want more help.
There are more examples and details in ‘What is the financial value of investing in digital working.
Big property savings examples in digital workplace
March 25, 2013 at 8:17 am | Posted in benefit, best practice, digital workplace, mobile, research, strategy, value | 3 CommentsTags: benefit, best practice, digital workplace, research, value
This is the fourth in my series of posts showing examples of the savings organisations have made by shifting work to a digital workplace. It draws on my previous posts on how you need to plan your strategy, governance, and management of content, tools, and services for a digital workplace. This is essential to transform your intranet into a digital workplace. The previous posts covered productivity savings, reduced absenteeism, and lower staff turnover.
I will be using examples from the Digital Workplace Group‘s report ‘What is the financial value of investing in digital working?‘ that show what organisations taking the right approach can achieve. This example covers how less, better utilised, physical workspace can save large amounts of money and impact on your organisation’s financial bottom line.
How to make the savings
- Transform the physical workplace into a digital workplace where employees can take advantage of its benefits.
- Dedicated versus flexible workspace – do you need the same workspace every working day?
- Reduce the number of buildings you need if more people are working at home or away from their dedicated workspace more often.
- Increase occupancy rates by matching the workspace to the people who actually use it rather than have empty desks while people are working elsewhere.
- Lower your costs by accurately forecasting your physical workspace needs based on trends in digital working.
What can be achieved
- Traditional offices are expensive, inefficient, inflexible, and difficult to scale (particularly down).
- About 60% of a company’s desks are vacant at any time.
- The average business could save $2,500 to $5,000 a year in property and related costs for each half time teleworker.
- Savings from real estate reduction through new ways of working programmes are making the headlines globally: Cisco ($1.1bn), BT (£60m), Deloitte ($30m),
IBM ($450m), US Patent & Trademark Office ($19.8m), GlaxoSmithKline ($50m) and more. - Investment in the digital workplace is a prerequisite for enabling employees to work effectively while reducing office space.
Examples
- BT’s Agile Worker programme saves approximately £6,000 a year for every full-time homeworker at BT. In 2009, with 10,168 homeworker par ticipants, BT saved approximately £60m, largely based on reduced estate costs.
- On any given day, more than 115,000 IBM employees around the world work in a non-IBM office. 40% of the IBM workforce operates without a dedicated office space. The employee/desk ratio is currently 4:1, with plans to increase the ratio to 8:1 in field locations. IBM calculates that it saves $450m a year in reduced facility infrastructure and associated initiatives through agile working.
- By transforming its sales team from office based to mobile, YELL reduced its property costs by £1.5m ($2.5m) a year and drove efficiency through reduced downtime.
- Through its Global Workplace Initiative, HP has increased its office space utilisation from an average of less than 40% to nearly 80% in just three years. The ratio of employees to desks ranges from 2:1 to 20:1 and varies by job, location, and other factors.
There are more examples and details in ‘What is the financial value of investing in digital working. My next post will cover the environmental benefits.
DW Trends 2013: ideal for DW and intranet practitioners
March 11, 2013 at 9:19 am | Posted in benchmark, benefit, best practice, digital workplace, governance, mobile, research, strategy | 1 CommentTags: benchmark, benefit, best practice, digital workplace, governance, research, strategy
I have recently been enjoying reading through Jane McConnell‘s latest Digital Workplace Trends Report for 2013. It is a feast of appetising information on the latest trends in the digital workplace. It gives great hints and tips. It is also very topical in view of the news about Yahoo! homeworkers and the known benefits of the DW that I have posted about recently.
The Digital Workplace Trends Report 2013 is very helpful for anyone who is involved with the digital workplace, whether you are starting to think about it, already planning how to transform your intranet, or wanting to check if what you have implemented is along the right track.
The real beauty in this great treasure trove of DW information for intranet practitioners will be:
- Trends – seeing how areas have stalled, accelerated, and the reasons why
- Layout – key findings shown as bullet points, graphs and bar charts to easily see key data
- Case study examples – a great addition and fascinating to read about real examples
- Dip in and out – choose to read one section, many, all sections. Whatever you decide this report will suit your needs.
If this was a printed instead of a digital document it would already be well-thumbed through with the corners bent by the times I have been reading sections again and again to learn more each time.
Don’t miss out on this unique research about the digital workplace.
Great examples of Digital Workplace productivity savings
February 27, 2013 at 9:24 am | Posted in benefit, best practice, digital workplace, engagement, intranet, research, value | 8 CommentsTags: benefit, best practice, digital workplace, engagement, money, research, value
This is the first in a series of posts showing examples of the benefits and savings organisations have gained by shifting work to a digital workplace. It draws on my previous posts on how you need to plan your strategy, governance, and management of content, tools, and services for a digital workplace. This is essential when transforming your intranet into a digital workplace.
I will be using examples from the Digital Workplace Group’s report ‘What is the financial value of investing in digital working?‘ that show what can be achieved if your organisation can take the right approach. My first example is how improved productivity can lead to huge savings in your time working and show on your organisation’s financial bottom line.
How to make the savings
I have posted on what you need to do to make productivity savings:
- Usability: clearly labelled content that’s easy to find
- IT capability: right tools to make best use of digital workplace
- Security: confidence in privacy of sensitive content
- Involvement: contribute to plans, make your needs known
What can be achieved
Organisations that have implemented these successfully have found:
- Improved productivity is the benefit that will have the most impact with senior management
- Work that happens in traditional offices is often inefficient
- Employee engagement is stronger with flexible working
- Engaged employees work harder and better
- Increased productivity through people working half the week from home
- Flexible work programmes improve productivity
- Investment is needed to increase productivity through new ways of working programmes
Examples
- BT now has 15,000 homeworkers out of 92,000 people who are 20% more productive (I know! I have been a homeworker for many years)
- Microsoft improved productivity by 28 minutes per person per day ($86m) through use of unified communications technology
- UPS homeworkers increased productivity by 17% and job satisfaction by 86%
There are more examples and details in ‘What is the financial value of investing in digital working‘. My next post in this series will cover declines in absenteeism.
Transforming your intranet into a digital workplace
November 5, 2012 at 8:49 pm | Posted in best practice, digital workplace, intranet | 5 CommentsTags: best practice, digital workplace, intranet
I will be the keynote speaker at Intranett 2012 in Oslo on 21 November. It is a great privilege to be asked and I am really looking forward to the conference and to meeting intranet friends and practtioners while I am there. I will be speaking about how you can transform your intranet into a digital workplace.
Organisations are transforming their intranets into digital workplaces to reduce their costs and remove unproductive time while employees are working. The intranet is a key ingredient in an evolving world of work and technology that we call the digital workplace. If you are working from a cafe on a smartphone, accessing IM, sales data or online expenses forms, you are in the digital workplace. As the intranet manager I helped BT to transform its way of working into a digital workplace that employees could use anywhere, any time, with any device. I will cover in more detail:
- What is a digital workplace
- How do you implement it
- How is the best way to manage it
- How will it affect the intranet and those working with intranets today
Since leaving I have helped clients to start transforming their intranets into digital workplaces. My next few posts will focus on how you can do this.
Maybe this is the best way to rebuild SharePoint 2010 content?
October 22, 2012 at 10:12 am | Posted in best practice, content management, intranet, plan, publishing, SharePoint 2010 | 1 CommentTags: best practice, content, intranet, publishing, sharepoint 2010
In my last post I talked about the second of three approaches to rebuilding your content from your existing publishing tool in to SharePoint 2010.
For each approach it is the conflict between minimising the impact on performance of the business with the extra cost of contractors while retaining the knowledge and experience of using SharePoint 2010. There isn’t just one answer and it can be a difficult choice to get right.
Using contractors to rebuild
My last approach covers your organisation hiring external contractors with SharePoint 2010 knowledge and expertise to rebuild your content. Contractors should be able to rebuild all types of content, whether simple or complex, without need for training.
It minimises the involvement of your content editors with rebuilding of content to focus on their business activities. It gives you flexibility on when you train your content editors to be able to update and create content, either during or after the rebuild has been completed.
You can also start your rebuild at short notice providing your contractors are available.
Benefits
Your organisation can save the costs and effort of training content editors before the rebuild until much later. The impact on operational performance is minimised.
All your content is rebuilt by contractors skilled in SharePoint 2010. You may use some of the contractors on a permanent basis to re-train your content editors and to continue offering expert advice and guidance. Your contractors can be your ‘Super Users’.
You have the flexibility to increase or reduce the time taken to rebuild all your content by hiring more or less contractors.
Drawbacks
Hiring external contractors with SharePoint 2010 experience will increase the costs of your organisation’s rebuild. Your content editors will not be so easily able to develop their knowledge by not rebuilding their content and learning from this experience.
It may be difficult to hire the right number of contractors with the skills and experience for the funding you have or within your timeframe.
Contractors have to learn the context and background to why content is published in the way chosen by your organisation. Your editors may save time not rebuilding their content but they will still need to explain what is needed to be done and why to contractors as well as checking and auditing what has been rebuilt before it can be published.
Summary
By assessing each of these approaches you can help to choose which will best suit what your organisation needs. You can factor in funding, timescales, editors’ skills and experience, when deciding what to do.
I have been directly involved in several SharePoint 2010 content rebuilds. If you need any more help please contact me.
The financial value gained from shifting to a digital workplace
September 18, 2012 at 11:06 am | Posted in benefit, best practice, digital workplace, engagement, intranet, research, value | 2 CommentsTags: benchmark, benefit, best practice, digital workplace, engagement, research, value
For the past two years I have posted about why it benefits organisations who move from a physical to a digital workplace for their employees to use. Many organisations have dipped their toe in the water but few have grasped the full potential benefits that can be gained.
Work is shifting from the physical to the digital workplace. Offices are not disappearing, but they are reducing in size. Their configuration is also changing, and their role in the workplace is being adapted. Work itself is becoming increasingly portable, mobile and flexible.
This fundamental shift represents a huge opportunity for organizations to achieve multiple benefits including reducing costs, improving productivity, increasing employee engagement and even environmental improvements. Yet, many organizations are not taking action and reaping the rewards. This is partly due to a lack of awareness of the opportunities at hand, and also due to some skepticism about the benefits amongst senior and middle-management in many businesses.
The Digital Workplace Forum has researched the financial value organisations have found from shifting to a digital workplace. You can get a FREE copy of this great report here.
The six distinct areas detailed in the report where results from investing in digital working can be achieved are:
- Real estate reductions (ability to reduce costs on office space)
- Productivity improvements (employees are often more efficient when working away from the office)
- Absenteeism declines (staff are less inclined to have a day officially away from the office if they are working flexibly)
- Staff turnover decreases (employees who work flexibly are more engaged, happier and less likely to leave)
- Operations continuity (a good digital workplace infrastructure is key for successful operations continuity and disaster planning)
- Environmental gains (by reducing employee travel there are significant reductions in organizations’ carbon footprint).
I recommend you ask for a copy and use it to benefit your organisation.
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