Our Digital Workplace Applications Research plan published today. It’s behind the paywall but some of the vision we have for the digital workplace is outlined.
Digital workplace leaders are responsible for designing, implementing and leading the digital employee experience (DEX) strategy. A well-crafted DEX strategy clarifies where you are, where you need to go and the roadblocks to getting there. Underpinning this strategy are applications for core digital capabilities (e.g., visual collaboration, content services, meeting solutions, workstream collaboration and knowledge management).
What differentiates companies that get a high value from their digital workplace technology investments, is a bias toward ensuring that people and processes evolve in concert with the technology. Upskilling and enablement are critical to business value realization and successful digital workplace leadership.
Support Organizational Priorities
Hybrid work has a positive impact on performance outcomes, because desk-based employees with a high degree of work flexibility are more likely to stay with the organization and feel aligned with the organizational culture.1 Flexibility supports the needs of frontline workers who are looking for more flexibility in shift scheduling and autonomy in selecting the teams with which they work. Digital workplace leaders can improve flexible work in these areas:
Culture and Community — The CEO’s greatest concern about hybrid working is culture engagement and morale followed by potential impacts on productivity.2 Digital workplace leaders are largely responsible for the applications supporting community building and communications which have a big impact on culture in a flexible work model. They also support applications such as collaborative work management, help drive a culture of work transparency and accountability, while also supporting business-led self-organizing work models.
Personal and Team Growth — Helping boost team and personal growth emerged as a primary digital workplace discipline during the pandemic and continues into the era of flexible work. Offering a portfolio of tools and insights that nudge workers toward time efficiency and improved productivity has become standard in many organizations. Strategies for helping teams set their own practices and norms for their collective DEX can improve intent to stay, reduce fatigue and improve performance (see Human-Centric Work Models Proven to Drive Performance the Most).
Workplace Experience — Digital workplace leaders, partnering with facilities management, are increasingly supporting applications that employees use when they visit an office. Workplace experience (WEX) apps simplify the process of planning a visit, reserving workspaces, navigating a workplace, coordinating colleagues and determining what amenities are provided. Emerging WEX apps enrich the flexible work experience by integrating with digitalized physical objects (e.g., smart lockers or desks), and take advantage of enterprise social graphs and artificial intelligence (AI). They predict employee use of social space and support colocation among collaborative team members.
Planned Research
- Top findings from the digital workplace experience survey
- Creating a “how we work” narrative to boost workforce digital dexterity in a hybrid world
- Measuring and improving workforce digital dexterity
- Aligning employee community and networking strategies to organizational initiatives
- How to build your digital workplace technical reference architecture
- Magic Quadrant for Collaborative Work Management
- Magic Quadrant for Intranet Packaged Solutions
- Market Guide for Workplace Experience Applications
- Market Guide for Content Services
- Market Guide for Meeting Solutions
- Market Guide for Visual Collaboration
- Market Guide for Innovation Management
- Help workers level up Microsoft 365 collaboration to maximize ROI
- Six surprises from the Gartner Digital Worker Experience Survey
- How can the digital workplace support the organizational dynamics of the future of work
- Harnessing fusion teams to ignite digital workplace success
- Improve the ROI on digital workplace technology investments through collaborative work
- Toolkit: Guide to successful citizen development programs
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