Gone are the days of employees coming together in a shared physical space to get work done. Today, team members collaborate remotely from all over the world using digital technologies. A digital workplace is one such technology that facilitates remote teamwork and knowledge sharing. Employees have digital access to all the data and tools they need to complete their work. Digital workplaces open up new possibilities of how organizations manage their operations. They also break down communication barriers of traditional workplaces and evolve where and how we work.
In this article, I’ll explore digital workplaces in detail. I’ll also show you the top solutions to use if you want to leverage this technology.
As always, let’s start with a simple definition!
What Is a Digital Workplace?
A digital workplace is a virtual platform designed to streamline everyday work and improve employees’ efficiency, collaboration, and morale. It’s a central hub that extends the physical workspace and allows employees to work without being bound to one location. Employees use this technology to streamline business operations, communicate securely, and share ideas effectively.
A digital workplace solution typically has the following features:
- Communication tools for instant messaging, virtual meetings, emails, and video conferences
- Cloud storage tools for sharing and working together on the same files and documents
- Analytics tools such as dashboards and report generation for better decision-making
- Management tools for time tracking, project management, resource allocation, and making financial transactions
Next, let’s take an in-depth look at why every business needs to adopt this technology.
Why Are Digital Workplace Solutions Important for Businesses?
Organizations that refuse to adopt digital solutions end up wasting time and resources on mundane tasks, miscommunication, and other inefficiencies. On the other hand, businesses operating in a virtual workplace experience more productivity, greater employee enthusiasm, and improved customer experience and satisfaction.
Here are some benefits of this modern workplace technology:
Improved Internal Communication
These virtual workplaces increase the visibility of tasks employees are currently working on. Employees can work on any project, pin notes about their changes, and continue working on previous tasks without interruption. As a result, the whole team can access standard information and communicate more effectively.
Greater Employee and Customer Satisfaction
Employees are the backbone of any business, and their morale typically reflects on the entire company, including the quality/availability of products and how satisfied the customers are. In a virtual workplace, employees no longer need to waste time waiting on documents to get authorized or tasks to get approved. Inspired to work faster and smarter, employees strive to create better products and solutions, which ultimately results in improved customer satisfaction.
Increased Agile Workforce
Working with other departments, even in the same organization, requires authorization and communication overheads. As a result, employees often risk getting left in the dark about several key project elements. A digital workplace breaks down such silos to improve cross-functional collaboration. For example, task authorization becomes instant, and projects unfold much quicker. Additionally, managers can acquire, delegate, or issue tasks quickly, boosting the agility of the entire workforce.
I’m confident that you’re eager to test drive a solution for your organization. But how do you go about doing that? Let’s explore!
How to Implement a Digital Workplace
Every organization has unique requirements and has to customize its own digital workplace infrastructure. However, I’d like to suggest some guidelines you can consider when implementing your strategy.
Assess Existing Solutions
It’s important to assess any existing solutions before adopting new technologies. Employee surveys, IT team inputs, and discussions with executives will help you assess your organization’s current status and create a common vision for the future.
Do Your Research
You have a variety of digital workplace solutions on the market. Some are single software systems, while others are a collection of multiple software as a service (SaaS) applications. You must find the best fit for your business while factoring in cybersecurity and integration with existing solutions.
Provide Sufficient Training
Migrating to new technologies can be quite challenging. You have to ensure your employees and team members are on board through regular progress updates, training meetings and videos, and updated workflow documentation. Employees will accept your new solutions faster if they feel confident using them.
If you’re ready to start your digital workplace research, I’d like to help you! I’ve researched some top digital workplace solutions available in the market today so that you can pick the best one for your organization. Let’s dive in!
Top Digital Workplace Solutions
Virtual workplace solutions have several features that support communication, collaboration, advanced analytics, and data sharing. In this section, I’ll discuss the top 5 solutions on the market.
1. Sococo
Sococo is a comprehensive digital workplace solution that offers a range of unique benefits and features. Its highlight is the fully customizable digital office layout, which allows businesses to accurately draw a map of the virtual rooms the employees can occupy.
Here are some other unique features:
- In the Sococo app, employees are displayed as avatars in different colors. Workers can set statuses, similar to ones found on social media websites, and move their avatars when migrating between teams, resting, working on a different project, or patching up previous tasks.
- You can find a variety of collaboration and communication tools included in Sococo. From conferencing, over instant messaging, to discussion forums, Sococo ensures employees can stay connected wherever they physically may be in the world.
- As a cloud-based digital workplace solution, Sococo offers its own document storage solutions. It’s a secure platform equipped with highly flexible tools that are reasonably easy to use.
2. Quadbridge
Quadbridge is among the more popular solutions because of its innovative communication tools, simple-to-use virtual whiteboards, and various proprietary solutions that offer alternative means to tackle digital challenges.
Some advantages of using Quadbridge include:
- Custom-built platform with several upgrade options
- Staff training and software integrations available as extra services
- Proprietary cloud storage with workload monitoring, performance monitoring, and cloud architecture services
3. Ricoh Digital Workplace
Ricoh is best suited for hybrid workplaces that allow employees work-from-home and office flexibility. This solution offers a range of IT and image-data services, as well as hardware solutions to complement them, such as:
- High-tier printers, copy machines, and projectors for physical offices
- Virtual whiteboards and cutting-edge video conferencing tools for remote work
4. Interact
Interact is a comprehensive digital workplace that features various unique tools for virtual content management, people management, and analytics.
Some of its main features include:
- Digital signing tools, multi-channel online communication, and virtual forums
- Customizable metrics, an intranet homepage builder, and a free intranet people directory
- Simple integration options with your existing IT systems
5. Simpplr
Simpplr is an advanced virtual workplace solution backed by artificial intelligence technology. Social following, employee blogs, and fully interactive workforce directories make Simpplr stand out from other contemporary solutions.
It provides businesses with the means to:
- Craft fully customizable virtual workplaces
- Tweak individual workspaces
- Seamlessly connect employees with cutting-edge video conferencing tools
These are the top five solutions that you can choose from based on your organization’s requirements. Now let’s summarize the discussion so far!
Final Words
A digital workplace is a software solution that allows remote connectivity and increases productivity by facilitating secure collaboration, communication, and data analytics. It automates administrative tasks and improves efficiency across the organization.
Organizations must adopt this innovation or risk losing employees to more flexible work arrangements and the consequent impact on customer experience. You have several digital workplace solutions to choose from, and you can refer back to this article in the near future for a quick refresher. It’s important to remember that rolling one out requires research, planning, and training.
In any case, I hope this article will help you with your research!
Do you have any more questions about digital workplace solutions? Check out the FAQ and Resources sections below!
FAQ
What is a digital workplace strategy?
A digital workplace strategy is the process of creating a plan to improve the efficiency of your digital workplace platform, the cohesion of apps on it, and streamline the way employees interact with the interface. Some of the typical results of a well-planned strategy encompass better communication, improved workforce agility, better data security, and more efficient collaborative efforts of employees.
What is a digital workplace manager?
This manager typically recommends digital workplace solutions or provides instruction regarding building a digital workplace platform. They also lead the process of implementation, train or teach key personnel about the new aspects of the platform, and pinpoint the exact needs of the workplace that require improvements.
What are the challenges of using a digital workplace?
Complexity and uncertainty are the main challenges of adopting a digital workplace. Employees can find many features and tools overwhelming and difficult to learn and use productively. In addition, they may be unsure of whom to ask for help and waste time in trial and error. Finally, your employees may become disengaged if they can’t figure out how to use your solution.
What is the difference between a digital workplace and a digital workspace?
A digital workplace is a software solution with several features that supports remote work and increases productivity. On the other hand, a digital workspace is a virtual space or user account each employee has in the digital workplace. For example, it could be a home page, profile page, or central dashboard from which they can access the content they need for their work. In many digital workplace solutions, such as Sococo, you can assign employees their digital slots, just like you’d assign cubicles or office desks in a physical workplace.
What is the most important characteristic of a successful digital workplace?
The most important characteristic of a successful digital workplace is its utility. Your chosen solution’s features should be relevant and easy to learn and use for your employees. They shouldn’t get overwhelmed by excessive add-ons or brand-related customization. Instead, they should have sufficient training and clarity on basic workflows before you demonstrate any extra features.
Resources
TechGenix: Newsletters
Subscribe to our newsletters for more quality content.
TechGenix: Article on Security and Digital Workplaces
Read more about delivering flexible workplaces without compromising on security.
TechGenix: Article on Preventing Inefficiencies in a Digital Workplace
Learn more about inefficiencies in a digital workplace.
TechGenix: Article on AI in Digital Workplaces
Learn about how artificial intelligence improves the digital workplace.
TechGenix: Article on Other Digital Workplace Technologies
Read about other digital workplace technologies for a future-ready workplace.
