The Role of IT in Unifying Digital Workplace Requirements

A digital workplace is a deliberate and ongoing approach to deliver a more productive environment for the employees and facilitate flexible and innovative work practices.

In other words, it is a unified workplace where tech-based platforms and tools allow employees to be more engaged, creative, and productive, irrespective of the device they are using, or their location.

But to achieve a truly unified workplace, organizations need the support of their IT department in order to pick a digital workplace that aligns with their employee requirements and business needs.

Implementing a digital workplace

A digital workplace is the complete set of digital tools an employee uses to get work done. For many organizations, these are separate solutions without much thought for how they integrate and overlap. But the best digital workplaces are a unified platform that allows employees to collaborate and perform their everyday work responsibilities seamlessly.

The idea is to give employees all the tools that they require to perform their work efficiently, no matter where they are located or what device they are using.

Over 90 percent of employees are interested in working remotely for the rest of their careers. For organizations, that means implementing a digital workplace is not just an option anymore; if they want to retain and attract talent, it’s a necessity.

While choosing a digital workplace platform for your employees, make sure that it has all the necessary features you require, including:

• Intuitive and user-friendly interface that can be easily used by tech and non-tech users
• Streamlines workflows
• Automates repetitive parts of a business process
• Integrates with your existing business applications
• Meets necessary enterprise security standards

How the IT department can help unify a digital workplace in an organization

Addressing disparate workforces and their requirements

The internet has not only changed our lives in the last 20 years, but it has also changed the way we work and the tools that we use to get the work done. Digitizing business processes in order to make them more efficient while saving time and money sounds like a good idea, but it comes with challenges of its own.

We now have a workplace with two different types of employees. One has been working even before emails were introduced in offices, while the other grew up with technology. Millennials are expected to make up for more than half of the global workforce by 2020.

For the IT department in your organisation, it is imperative to find a digital workplace platform that can work as a bridge between the two generations and boost efficiency.

Incorporating a digital workplace is less about technology and more about the people who will be using that technology. That’s why it’s important to have a people-first approach when coming up with a plan to implement the digital workplace in your organisation so that you are able to achieve improved employee engagement and productivity.

Understanding and streamlining key business drivers

A unified digital workplace should be able to connect the entire organisation across boundaries and organisational structures. While a digital workplace should be easy enough to be used by non-technical users, it is the responsibility of the IT department to make sure it streamlines the key business drivers and integrates the existing business applications.

It should be able to give people access to information, processes, or anything else within the context of the task or project at hand. The key business drivers you should focus on streamlining include:

• Business processes management
• Process automation
• Content management
• Workflow management
• Seamless collaboration

Better control and management

By providing employees centralised access to the tools and apps, IT is able to better manage and track how the tools are being used. The applications that aren’t able to increase productivity in any way or are raising a lot of issues can be replaced or removed completely.

With applications that are approved by the IT team, there are also fewer chances of employees going rogue which in turn eliminates file redundancy, tightens security, and saves time as well. It also creates more transparency across the organisation and makes it easier for the management to track the progress of every project.

Digital Workplaces are the key to the future of work

IT will play a big role in both identifying, building, and implementing a digital workplace. They know what is possible and are building the master plan. Rather than allowing your organisation’s digital workplace to be a disparate and siloed collection of apps, push for a unified digital workplace that meets everyone’s standards, and keeps work in one central hub.