In the second wave, having a collaborative work platform became a key issue that allowed employees to maintain productivity at home. Good practice.
Faced with the need to maximize remote work during the second wave, the digital workplace has once again become the focus of attention. The so-called digital environment refers to the digital environment that can be accessed from the office, and can also collect information useful to employees remotely, whether it is individual (notes, drafts, etc.) or collective (files, data from applications, data from shared workspaces) ). ..). At the same time, it contains the applications needed for teamwork: messaging, team messaging, content editing modules, document management, corporate social networks, project management tools, etc.
In most organizations, it used to be e-mail for organizational work and collaboration. This is the preferred channel for sending documents and receiving various notifications… there is a risk of making the information difficult to read. The full challenge of the digital workplace will include converting this chaotic process into a more efficient product: team messaging, visual management, and co-publishing space. Arnaud Rayrole, managing director of the French consulting company Lecko, concluded: “The goal of all publishers in this field is to finally provide the integration of all these functions through a unified solution.”
Build on existing tools
This is more logical than starting with the company’s existing collaboration applications and practices. It was observed there that most organizations are already equipped with Office 365 or Google Workspace (previously known as G Suite). Think of yourself as a platform for the digital workplace, right or wrong.
Some entities or departments may also use other applications, such as Trello for project management or Jira for support. “The first question to ask is: how to use this toolbox and how to make the most of it”, Arnaud Rayrole suggests.
Including end users
Exit the top-down improvement portal project that has been built for ten years in many large companies. Usually carried out by internal communication, they include providing a window that brings together top-down information from the group, subsidiary or employee entity, as well as collaborative applications and human resource support services. Arnaud Rayrole insisted: “This is a trap we can’t fall into anymore.”
Olivier Berenger, Employee Experience and Change Practice Department Manager of Devoteam Management Consulting, insisted: “The goal is to align digital workplace projects with individuals. However, this concept is not enough. The collective dimension should also be considered and the project and How the business team works and what the existing solutions are for. This requires investigative work: “Therefore, the top-down logic should give way to a bottom-up approach.
Align with the business team
Only users know how to use digital services for their business problems. “Obviously. Let’s take the legal department as an example. It will be able to handle all disputes through the team messaging system. For its supervision, it will be conducted through a community of practice based on corporate social networks. As for the internal supervision procedures, it will publish them On a record intranet,” Lecco’s Arnaud Rayrole explained. “The purpose is to define the tools the team needs and how to implement them, and organize them to optimize their processes. This leads to a dynamic workspace that can continuously re-prioritize. Goals and tasks for the day.”
In keeping with agile methods, it is recommended to gradually deploy the digital workplace and make adjustments without hesitation when users take over.
Define outcome indicators
Key result indicators (KPIs) will be specific to each type of brick used. For example, for a company’s social network, this is engagement, which translates to the percentage of employees connected and the percentage of contributions (by post, like, comment) each month and week. For shared workspaces, this is the number of documents created and/or edited by several. Finally, for team messaging, the amount of interaction per day.
Olivier Berenger of Devoteam warned: “These figures are of little significance if they are not translated into productivity gains.” “We can estimate by comparing the functions of the team before and after implementation through qualitative surveys. ”
Business applications integrated in parallel with the digital workplace can help provide metrics. “For example, among our customers, an international company has added ServiceNow to its HRIS to remotely manage its foreign personnel’s contracts. The time saved in this process has been precisely measured,” Olivier Berenger said.
Apply governance, but maintain flexibility
A well-used digital workplace obviously means clear governance rules. Olivier Berenger emphasized: “The definition of terms can increase people’s awareness of the correct use of different components.” These reference objects are the true framework of best practices, for example, specifying where to store shared data To avoid duplication. “If the project is tested through the Microsoft Teams team messaging system, they will indicate that the content related to the deliverable must be stored in the document management tool (for Office 365, SharePoint, editor’s note)”, Olivier pointed out . Belengue.
However, governance rules should not prevent the team from maintaining its freedom and agility. “The challenge is to find the right balance so as not to limit the development of innovation and local uses. Knowing that they can inspire other entities and ultimately through productivity”, Olivier Berenger explained. Lecko’s director Bastien Le Lann agreed: “It’s shameful to restrict services that seek other user experience to other places. Generally, departments that want to integrate their business applications into team messaging systems will logically face Slack, and Not Teams. Trello is more attractive to teams that support Kanban project management than Microsoft Planner, and Microsoft Planner is weaker in this area.
Complete existing
In terms of technology, digital workplaces should benefit from corporate directories (LDAP or Active Directory). Bastien Le Lann insists: “This is a prerequisite, and then various functional blocks and related content of the platform can be promoted according to the personal information of the employees and their access rights.”
Given the aspirations of the field, various third-party tools can be used to supplement Office 365 or Google Workspace (see the article “Matrice Lecko 2020: 35 Collaboration Applications Under the Microscope”). Some have even been cut to make up for the lack of content integration between the two packages. This is the case with the social and collaborative intranet developed by French publisher LumApps, which raised $70 million in early 2020. This allows both platforms to have smart environments. Their files, messages, activity streams, and team message channels are indexed through the solution, which also manages their sharing. The idea is to optimize the management and reference of company knowledge.
For further practice, LumApps is now integrating with Salesforce and Workday. Ultimately, our goal is to pilot and syndicate corporate content and applications at a single point. In short, work hard for the final digital workplace according to the needs of each team, flexible and configurable.
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