Till the beginning of the year 2020, working from home instead of travelling a couple of hours daily to office was looked upon as just an excuse by employers. The major change in work style that we saw in 2020 was a paradigm shift from the physical workplace to the digital workplace. The pandemic and lockdowns all over the world forced people to work from home, or stay without working. While initially it seemed almost impossible for firms to survive in a digital environment, all of us have coped quite well.
Clearly, the pandemic is proving to be a blessing in disguise for firms at all levels. Those in the service industry realised that a Zoom call could replace travelling, they were not required to travel to the office daily and, most importantly, it has resulted in huge cost savings on real estate. Of course, physical meetings and the ‘office culture’ won’t be replaced by the complete digital workspace and irrespective of what we call the ‘new normal’, it is believed that once restrictions are over, people will get back to the normal office and physical workplace. But life and office culture will never be the same again. Even if the digital office will not replace the physical office, there is no denying that it will change the way we look at our office and no one can afford to ignore it. To understand this even better, let us first understand the concept of the Digital Workplace.
WHAT IS A DIGITAL WORKPLACE?
Initially, the Digital Workplace was meant to complement the physical office. The idea was to facilitate easy working for employees who may have difficulties in travelling or are working from different locations. However, most people used to travel for even the slightest work, or for meetings, and the ‘9 to 5’ culture was at its prime with employees expected to reach the office physically to be counted as working on a particular day. Remember the struggle we put up with when it was raining just to reach office safe and dry, or come back walking (or rather, wading) during the deluge of 26th July, 2005 in Mumbai? For the last few years, companies have been spending money on technology and remote working but still always expected employees to travel to the office unless it was not possible. However, 2020, the pandemic year, has changed everything. With no scope to travel to the office, everyone was literally forced to adapt to remote working. The proof of the concept was put to use and now businesses have started operating at full capacity at the Digital Workplace.
A Digital Workplace is the basic set of digital tools that employees use to get work done. These include Instant Messaging apps to Meeting Tools and online storing of documents, and even automated workflows to manage the work. Essentially, ‘the Digital Workplace is the virtual, modern version of the traditional workplace where work can be done through devices, anytime, anywhere’.
However, let’s see what a Digital Workplace is not. It is much more than having apps as a part of office workflow. It is more than accessing office files from anywhere. But when the flow of work and monitoring of performance to get measurable results are seamlessly integrated, we can see the Digital Workplace emerge. It starts by understanding what it really is and how it can help your organisation deliver measurable business value.
Why shifting to a Digital Workplace will help an organisation and employees
- Talent attraction: A survey1 says that over 60% of employees would not mind being paid less if they get flexibility to work from anywhere. People have started realising the importance of staying at home and spending time with the family, getting those extra few minutes of sleep as they don’t need to rush to catch a train / bus to the office, and so on. Additionally, Work from Home (WFH) means employees can afford a bigger house at a better location rather than fitting in a smaller house to avoid travelling for work daily, or maybe even have a Staycation working with laptops while sipping ginger tea at Shimla!
- Improved inclusivity: The one good part of opting for a Digital Workplace is that we can have talent without geographical barriers. With a physical workplace, we were restricted to hiring talent within our cities. But now, someone with an office in Mumbai can hire talent from Delhi or Dubai. The physical location of the employee, except for the time zone, hardly matters.
- Economical: Having a Digital Workplace is economical not only for firms, but also for employees. While firms can save on real estate rents, electricity, stationery and support staff to facilitate working at the office, for employees the savings come as reduction in transportation costs, parking charges, travelling time, need for spending on professional wardrobes, lunch and dinner, the need to eat outside and so on.
- Less stress of commuting: One of the biggest worries for people living in big cities in India and all over the world is commuting. While many countries have the best of infrastructure, India is still developing the same and incidents like the 2017 stampede at Elphinstone Road railway station during rush hours may be terrifying, but these are a regular risk of travelling on local trains in metro cities. Besides, commuting in public transport exposes employees to the risk of losing their valuables, including office assets, due to theft or damage on account of extraordinary rush on a frequent basis.
WHAT SHOULD YOUR DIGITAL WORKPLACE INCLUDE?
Technically and practically, a Digital Workplace should include all the technology tools that we need to operate in our profession. These tools should broadly take care of four categories of work: how your employees can communicate, how they can collaborate, how they can connect and how they can deliver the final services and evaluate the work done. Let us take a closer look at each of these:
1. Communications at a Digital Workplace:
We aren’t in a place now where we can meet at the cafe or share ideas at the water cooler in the office. Considering these restrictions, it becomes important that while we have a Digital Workplace we also give employees freedom to communicate which they would have otherwise done at the office. In fact, with a DigiWorkplace around, the communications aren’t restricted to a team or a location. Employees in Mumbai can also communicate with those in Delhi. The basic communication tools should include the following:
- Emails – Currently, Google Workspace is very widely used for emails. However, there are many other players like Outlook and the Indian Zoho. Each of these offers its unique advantage over the others. But Gmail, since it gives auto integration to other widely-used apps like Google Drive, Google Photos and Android Phones, has become more popular amongst users. Gmail also provides its search functionality to its email, which means that searching past emails with Gmail is always faster. Though all these companies do provide their free email accounts, it is always advisable to buy a company domain (@yourcompany.com or .in, etc.) instead of using standard emails like ‘@gmail.com’. These are paid services but the company domain always gives a better impression. Besides, all the companies provide additional services for paid versions vis-a-vis free versions.
- Instant messaging apps – A Digital Workplace will definitely need an instant messaging app wherein the employees can keep working while having chats on their queries going on. One of the most common messaging apps that comes in handy with Gmail is Google Hangouts. The whole purpose of such instant messaging apps is to facilitate official messages, calls and video calls so that our personal space on WhatsApp or any other personal app isn’t disturbed. Another app which has found its market in the corporate world for instant messaging is ‘Slack’ which comes with all features of instant messaging, calling and video calling. One good part about Slack is that it can be integrated with almost all the other apps and portals.
- Other basic communications – Other basic communication toolkits at any Digital Workplace would include customised portals or intranet which may have options to publish news, have blogs or articles, introduce new employees, celebrate birthdays, etc., such as ProofHub, a project-planning software with tools like discussions, notes, Gantt charts, to-do lists, calendaring, milestones, timesheets, etc. Such intranet communication software if implemented well, can solve a lot of communication shortcomings of the Digital Workplace.
2. Collaborations at the Digital Workplace:
To solve business problems and operate productively, organisations must have the ability to leverage knowledge across the enterprise with online, seamless, integrated and intuitive collaboration tools that enhance the employees’ ability to work together. A collaboration toolkit at the workplace should include:
- Productivity is a collaborative tool that can’t be ignored. Having tools which can enhance productivity of employees can help them to enable knowledge and perform their work more efficiently. A Digital Workplace should have tools which can help all employees to collaborate on projects / files together. These can include a common drive, word processors, live spreadsheets, presentations, CRMs. Google WorkSpace does give an option for all of these in one place.
- Business Applications – To make it easier to collaborate, a Digital Workplace should have basic business applications where employees can work simultaneously. An HR system like FreshTeams which is accessible both on portals and on mobiles indeed suffices as an end-to-end HR function. From on-boarding to maintaining documents and to managing approvals, FreshTeams has us covered for everything. Managing employees’ expenses is another worry that we may face while having a Digital Workplace. However, Expensify is one software that can indeed be very useful. Other business applications that are a must-have for a Digital Workplace include ERPs and CRMs like Tally, SAP, QuickBooks and the recent favourite Zoho.
3. Connect:
Self-sufficiency no longer guarantees effectiveness. Employees need tools that allow them to connect across the organisation, leverage intellectual property and gain insight from one another. The Digital Workplace delivers on these goals by fostering a stronger sense of culture and community within the workplace.
Connectivity apps or data in general help employees to know each other’s profiles, their locations, expertise, etc., to reach out easily. A basic data should include employee directory, organisation chart and rich profile.
4. Deliver the result:
The phrase ‘meet your customer where your customer is’ can take a whole new meaning with a Digital Workplace. While face-to-face interactions delivering reports or presentations have gone for a toss, there are still ways to provide your clients with the same sentiments. Professionals may shift to virtual communication networks like Google Meet, Webex, Zoom, Zoho Meetings, etc. As we deliver results in virtual form, we share some tips to have the same level of interaction as in the physical form:
- Hold all the meetings, whether internal or external, on video. You need not keep your video off. Having videos turned on during meetings gives a personal touch;
- Send emails or catch up casually with inactive clients to let them know you are still thinking about them and their business;
- Try and accommodate to the apps that your clients use so that they do not have to struggle in meetings;
- Practise – This is one quality that should always remain, irrespective of whether the presentations are online or offline. Practise screen-sharing, slide moves and presentation flow on how it may look on the communication networks while delivering the same to the client.
LIMITATIONS OF DIGITAL WORKPLACE:
While we see giant leaps in the Digital Workplace, it has its own drawbacks. There are platforms that specialise in making collaboration easier and more effective, but the most important component which is missing in the Digital Workplace is ‘social interaction’. It is not merely limited to non-verbal communication where there are no feelings while reading chats / emails, but a Digital Workplace literally means that staff does not spend quality time together like being in office, so the chances of having team bonding are less. This, too, can lead to communication difficulties since misunderstandings are more likely.
Another sad part is the fact that we are used to seeing employees and colleagues face-to-face, or in real face-time. As far as possible, employees should also meet in person from time to time and use the video call function for important meetings. When an actual meeting is not possible, it is advisable to arrange a video call at least once a month without an official agenda to have team bonding.
CONCLUSION
The way the Digital Workplace is evolving, it may not replace the existing physical office or completely do away with it. We are seeing that companies have already started calling their employees back to offices and soon ‘Work From Home’ may not be available to all. But what this pandemic has shown us is that it is possible to work from home and that there are both advantages and limitations of working from home, but with technology evolving, things are getting better and better. We believe that even if we may not move to a compulsory ‘Work From Home’ culture anytime soon, travelling will become optional and companies will give optional WFH to their employees for a few days in a month. Above all, from the firm’s point of view, the Digital Workplace will become more important as it will be able to cater to the workforce from all over the world without having to spend additional sums on their relocation, etc. Besides, a foolproof Digital Workplace system means the firm can outsource routine and monotonous work to people at remote locations at much cheaper rates and it may work like the Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) model.
In our articles over the next few months, we will also be discussing other considerations for having a Digital Workplace that shall include:
- Comparisons between a Physical WorkPlace vs. a Digital Workplace vs. a Virtual Workplace vs. Co-Working Spaces;
- How we can manage various functions of our firm – HR, Finance, Marketing, etc., using our Digital Workplaces;
- Interviews with industry leaders and practical examples of Digital Workplaces.
(The authors of this article are in no way connected with or influenced by any of the apps or portals mentioned herein, except that they are users. The apps and portals mentioned are recommendatory as they have been useful to us)
