How to Create A Digital Workplace Experience
As technology continues to transform the workplace, it’s more important than ever for organizations to provide employees with a relevant, effective, and meaningful digital workplace experience.
If you’re considering a digital workplace strategy, it’s important to understand exactly what it is, what the benefits are and how to implement and measure it.
The coronavirus pandemic accelerated a shift to hybrid working into a matter of months, rather than years. Although many companies were extremely resilient, the quick shift meant that they were ill-prepared to meet all of the demands that their abruptly remote and distributed teams required. A staggering 44% of all UK employees felt that the shift to remote working would have been a lot smoother if their company had established workplace technologies beforehand. The same study found that almost all workers felt that their company was not ready to implement hybrid working in the long term, highlighting how essential it is to invest in the right workplace technologies to support this new way of working which has been widely accepted as the future of workplaces.
It’s likely that this is exactly why you landed on this page. Your company was abruptly shifted into remote working, in which there are many benefits, but also many downfalls. So now, as we move into the recovery phase of the pandemic and offices are opening up, you’re looking into ways that you can facilitate a more balanced hybrid workplace. Hybrid working is the optimal choice for most, offering the flexibility, choice and work-life balance that employees desire. Nevertheless, this new way of working requires a digital workplace experience strategy to effectively run a connected, cohesive and collaborative workplace community. The aim of a digital workplace experience is to drive efficiency in the workplace, we’ll show you exactly how in this informative piece.
Digital Workplace Experience 101
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of what a digital workplace experience is, let’s take a step back and reflect on what workplace experience is, and how it’s adapted. Put simply, workplace experience relates to all of the touchpoints that affect an employee’s experience in the workplace. This includes office design, workplace culture, internal communications, workplace services and the technologies and tools that they use every day to effectively do their jobs.
A good workplace experience fosters productive, engaged and happy employees. What ‘workplace experience’ means has changed significantly over time. With technological advancements and the ability to practically work from anywhere, digital workplace experience has become a huge aspect of the overall experience due to its huge impact on the way we work.
What is the digital workplace experience?
From basic core tools like email to video conferencing, HR tools, an intranet and workplace experience applications. Every single business in some way or another is taking advantage of digital workplace technologies to perform their tasks. But the digital workplace goes far beyond just that. It’s become such an incredibly imperative part of modern work that the meaning of the digital workplace has transformed into something far more holistic. It now represents an entire way of working that can be all facilitated digitally.
As technological developments advance, the digital workplace has become an increasingly imperative part of any functioning business and therefore paying particular attention to your company’s digital workplace is key. It’s likely you’re already utilising many digital tools, but by building a digital workplace strategy you can ensure you’re utilising the best technologies for your business.
Technology can facilitate a productive, collaborative and cohesive environment, driving efficiency in the workplace. This part of the digital workplace is what we know as the digital workplace experience. Throughout this informative piece, we are going to explain the benefits of a virtual workplace experience and how you can implement (or improve) yours.
Why a digital workplace is imperative to hybrid working
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated a shift to remote working, with many companies moving to completely remote or hybridised work.
Hybrid working is a way of working that gives employees the choice of where they work, either in the office or at home. If the company has a ‘hub and spoke’ model where they have the main office headquarters in a central location and several smaller satellite offices across the country or world, the employee may even have several workplace options at their disposal. Hybrid working has many benefits and has grown in popularity due to the increased work-life balance it provides as well as the increased productivity. With employees having flexibility on where they work they can choose the workplace environment suitable for that day’s task where they feel they will be most productive.
Although there are many benefits to be taken advantage of, there’s also some risks. Companies that have not implemented the right workplace tools could find themselves with disconnected and disengaged employees. This is where the digital workplace comes into play. Hybrid working environments rely on technology to connect, collaborate and communicate with hybrid working teams. Digital workplace transformation is imperative to business success as we move into the future of work.
Benefits Of Improving The Digital Workplace Experience
With digital workplace experience becoming such a fundamental part of successful and productive teams, you need to consider how you can improve your experience or you could start falling behind. With anything, this takes time and resources to implement and you’re probably wondering if it’s really going to be worth it. Here we outline the main benefits of improving the digital workplace experience so you can come to your own conclusion.
Improve culture
A strong sense of workplace culture is extremely important to the success of a business. Companies with a good workplace culture are more likely to attract and retain the best talent. As the workplace is steadily becoming hybrid and distributed, improving the digital workplace will be key to enhancing your workplace culture as you’ll be better equipped to connect distributed teams and reinforce your company values if you have an optimised digital experience for employees. Companies that move to hybrid working but fail to implement a digital workplace layer to their business could be at risk of having disengaged and disconnected employees.
Driving efficiency in the workplace
A virtual workplace experience allows you to enhance productivity by offering your workforce the tools and resources that they require, accessible from anywhere. A workplace experience platform can integrate with your existing workplace tools to provide a simple unified and cohesive experience accessible to employees all via a mobile app. A workplace app can be used to enhance communication, incentivise teams and increase satisfaction which all impact productivity levels.
Provide cohesiveness & flexibility
A digital workplace experience allows companies moving to hybrid working the ability to provide a cohesive layer to the workplace that ultimately means that they can provide the flexibility that hybrid working offers while having the cohesiveness that a workplace needs to effectively function.
Arup tapped into this trend and proposed that employers may implement “a flexible toolkit of workplace offerings” which would allow employees to understand the facilities at their disposal, giving them the choice on when and where they work. The report continued to explain how technology such as a workplace experience app could be utilised to create a cohesive workplace environment: “One way of making this possible is the concept of ‘digital concierges’. The digital concierge is the interconnectivity of clusters of spaces spread over a portfolio of assets, which are governed and accessed through apps or other interactive platforms. This helps make an otherwise discrete group of spaces and environments part of a cohesive whole.”
Attract the best talent
As the average percentage of the workforce is increasingly becoming digital natives, the demand for high-performing technology in the workplace is becoming not just important but expected. Moreover, companies that have a workplace experience platform in place will be able to facilitate flexible working much more efficiently and therefore be able to recruit talent from all over the world, rather than a very specific location which will limit the talent pool available to them.
Digital Workplace Platform: The What And Why
Now that you understand exactly what a digital workplace experience is, we want to hone in on exactly what a digital workplace platform is and why it’s becoming an increasingly important tool for companies.
A digital workplace platform is essentially a digital layer to the workplace accessible from employees’ mobile phones. This means that no matter where they’re based, or even if they’re on the go, they can tap into the workplace and access the services, tools and resources that they require to make their workday more seamless.
More than half of all workers use three or more devices for work, including smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers. Mobile has surpassed computers as the most popular way to access the Internet and with the average mobile phone user spending well over three hours a day on their phones made up of almost 60 pickups, it’s no surprise that a mobile app for the workplace makes perfect sense.
In addition to the mobile app, an employee experience platform has a dashboard where administrators can add articles, events and services easily, so the app always has fresh and relevant content. They can also track engagement levels meaning that they can make data-driven decisions to improve the workplace experience.
It’s a great tool to share internal communications, but it goes far beyond that. Your workforce can browse, book and pay for services, tap into perks and discounts, check out what latest events and virtual conferences are happening and even navigate the physical office more efficiently with mobile access, desk and meeting room bookings and a virtual concierge. The virtual workplace experience ultimately helps to drive efficiency in the workplace.
Measure And Enhance The Digital Workplace Experience
The benefit of having a digital workplace experience is that you’ll have a wealth of data that you can tap into using the digital tools to improve and iterate experiences.
District’s Insights Explorer offers just this. We’ve developed an analytics dashboard where you can track and measure engagement and user activity in the app. Lee Butz, District Technologies CEO, said: “The analytics dashboard gives you real-time insight into your workplaces meaning that you can constantly monitor, test and iterate community services to provide the best experience for your employees. A workplace platform removes any day to day friction from their office experience so they can focus on their work and truly affect your bottom line growth in the most productive way.
The analytics dashboard allows you to track various metrics that not only prove the success of the platform but also the engagement levels from the number of event bookings to article views in detail.
District’s published APIs allow us to easily connect our platform with other existing data sources you may already have. Not only does this mean that you get no duplication of data, but through sharing collaboratively across platforms, you get a much richer data-set to analyse and gain insights. Through interoperability, you can build a far better picture of your portfolio, while saving hours going back and forth reviewing multiple platforms.
The Digital Workplace Experience For 2021 And Beyond
District Technologies has developed a workplace experience app fit for hybrid working and the future of work. Our platform allows communities to navigate the workplace and stay connected from anywhere. We make the on-site experience far more seamless, from mobile building access to booking desks and meeting rooms, to viewing and booking food and drink services and many other features that optimise your office locations. For your hybrid teams, you also need a digital layer that engages remote and distributed workers. We’ve got that covered with our community platform with content, events and perks accessible from anywhere.
In 2021, the workplace is no longer four walls with a bunch of desks inside. With a workplace experience platform, you can provide a digital layer to your workplace that will facilitate the shift to hybrid working and future-proof your business.
With a branded workplace experience platform you can reinforce your brand message and company culture. Set an amazing first impression to new employees and stay front of mind with current employees with custom colours and fonts, your company logo, and your very own unique app in the App Store. The platform allows you to build a sense of workplace community at every touchpoint, through your curated news feed on the homepage to the members’ directory where users can search and interact with others. Your admins can easily add new articles, events, digital services and perks giving your employees a reason to check back and see what’s happening regularly. The multi-faceted benefits of the app will suit your diverse team, whether they’re working on-site in the office or remote working, they can tap into the app and feel a part of the buzzing workplace culture from anywhere.
District Technologies is the go-to workplace experience platform that delivers to landlords and companies. A snapshot of some of our clients includes; WPP, Investec, CEG, Elmpark Green, Cushman & Wakefield. If you’re interested in creating or improving your digital workplace experience, book a demo to find out more about our platform.