5 Steps to implementing a successful digital workplace transformation

Business Plan

The evolving digital technologies of today offer both potential opportunities and disruption for IT leaders, it is how you handle the changing landscape that will affect your business’ success.

An effective digital workplace transformation strategy will drastically improve the employee experience. This is because the process aims to align your company’s processes with the technology you use and your employees, resulting in optimal efficiency.

The importance put on employee job satisfaction is at an all-time high and according to Wavestone (Previously known as WGroup and it’s a top IT and business advisory firm that operates in the US) over 80% of millennials consider workplace technology before accepting a new job, with 42% of those stating they would quit their job if the workplace technology was sub-par. A digital workplace can break down communication barriers and implementing successful transformation strategies can drive internal cultural change.

Here are five steps to follow when undergoing organizational transformation:

Assess Your Current Processes:

Before you digitalize all of your processes, analyze how important your nondigital processes are. Do you need to digitalize these processes or scrap them altogether? Don’t spend your time digitally recreating a nondigital process that you no longer need in today’s technological climate.

Once you have identified the processes that are still necessary, analyze all of your processes, including the ones that are already digitalized. Identifying the processes that need addressing allows you to outline all the departments and teams involved in this digital transformation. Keeping key team members in the loop regarding the changes you are about to make is fundamental to success.

Identifying the departments involved in your digital transformation strategy can also help you tailor the transformation. Each different function of your organization has different needs and distinguishing between them and catering for specific requirements will help improve satisfaction and productivity.

Profile Your Employees:

Undergoing an employee profiling exercise identifies current and potential future workplace issues, enabling executives to change the digital workplace before problems occur. Two common ways to conduct workforce profiles are online surveys and questionnaires. An employee profile involves monitoring mobility patterns, workplace requirements, employee satisfaction, workplace productivity, and what needs to change to improve the environment or processes.

Understanding your employee’s behavior, motivations, and work activities will allow you to create a digital workplace transformation strategy that addresses the priorities of your workforce and will help to predict future work patterns.

Profiling your employees is a key tool to future-proofing your organization. However, this information must be reliable and targeted for executives to interpret it correctly and implement relevant change. Focus on people working within key functions or departments and ensure that differing gender and generational needs are considered.

Set Clear Goals and Measurable KPIs:

You must be able to understand how the changes you make affect your employees. If you are unclear about what positive changes your company processes are making and whether they are having a considerable effect, it is unlikely that your strategy will be successful.

Monitor the adoption rate of your initiatives and your employee’s satisfaction to understand where you should focus your attention. Consistently monitor whether these rates are moving in the correct direction and adapt your strategy to facilitate positive change.

Additionally, the goals of your campaign should be user-centric. Employee satisfaction largely depends on a variety of factors including collaboration, new hire appeal, and ease of use. Discover which factors are most important to your team and focus your efforts on them.

Customize Training Materials:

When considering a digital workplace transformation, one of the most frequent causes of concern is the training process and associated materials. Making too many new changes with inadequate training opportunities or materials can be extremely discouraging for employees.

Providing concrete examples of how new tools can be used and making training interactive are two excellent ways to make sure your workforce feels confident and comfortable with new processes.

Training materials should also be inclusive of all generations. New digital processes may be more intimidating for some employees than others, so making sure the associated materials cater to everyone is imperative.

When creating training materials ‘communication overload‘ is something else to consider. Including details in your training materials that do not directly impact your employees or those in particular departments can result in information overload. To avoid this common issue, focus on only the most important and relevant points.

Implement Change Management Strategy:

Change management is the process that steers how an organization and its workforce successfully adopt changes related to digitalization success.

A change management strategy clearly outlines who will lead the change, who will implement change, what channels will be used to communicate changes, and what training materials will be supplied to assist change.

For any change in a business to be a success, support from senior staff is required. Change management strategies ensure that the correct people are identified at every level. The strategy also makes sure that your digital transformation does not solely focus on IT and technology components. HR procedures, business strategies, and management processes should also be considered when undergoing a digital workplace transformation. These components should work together with the IT and technology departments to make effective company culture shifts.

In Conclusion:

The best digital workplace transformation strategies focus on end-to-end experiences and use a human-centered approach. Employee satisfaction directly affects their productivity, therefore, If you want your business to operate to maximum efficiency, focusing on the experience of your employees is paramount.

To improve your internal performance, boost your competitive advantage, and increase your talent attraction prospects treat your employees as you treat your customers. Once you master this, your company’s efficiency can only improve.

Author’s bio:
Saif Abbas is a writer, part-time entrepreneur and digital marketing consultant that has worked with Fortune 500 brands and top startups across the globe. He is also a regular contributor to media outlets, including Huffington Post, Drift, Forbes, Ahref, Moz, Search Engine Land, and others.