Flexible working hours and the advantage of working remotely are not bonuses – These are situations which employees expect.
With changing times and latest technological advancements being introduced in the market, the way employees are functioning is also changing. Gone are those days when the workplace is a physical space, occupied by the workforce during regular working hours. Today’s workplace is more of a connected one!
The Gen Z employees like to share knowledge across the organization and want to discuss the business ideas beyond the usual work groups. This changing need of employee work experience have compelled companies to introduce the new workplace – “The Digital Workplace”. For employees are no more used to this “push and create information” and thus need a space wherein they can share and gain knowledge, play an important part in an organization’s goals, stay informed and pitch ideas to better serve the needs of a company.
What is digital collaboration?
In simple words, digital collaboration is breaking down the communication barriers, enhancing employee engagement while also enhancing growth, innovation and efficiency.
Companies have come to realize this evolving experience of their employees and have started integrating technologies that they use such as emails, instant messaging, enterprise social media tools, HR applications and a lot more. This “Digital Workplace” simply breaks down the communication barriers, enhancing the employee experience and bringing in efficiency, innovation and growth.
The effect of the Gig Economy
As per studies, 93% of the companies recognize the blended workforce, wherein the freelancers combine with the employees in the organization to work on projects. In addition to this, the outperforming employers are benefitting from such kind of a setup for “more flexible teaming” with a suitable digital collaboration tool.
This sudden outburst of the Gig Economy culture has given major uplift to the Digital Workplace supported by one of the important aspects of Collaboration.
Coming to the collaboration aspect in digital workplaces, smart work environments ensures that the workflows are met in a definite manner. Reduced friction and increased business velocity are some of the benefits that are enjoyed while working in collaboration with others. It not only establishes a smooth working process but leads to better management of the workplace. A Digital Collaboration is therefore a must for most businesses, these days. However, the usefulness of a Digital Collaboration solutions works best when implemented, correctly.
How to improve digital collaboration in your organization?
Here are some of the important aspects to focus on to make Collaborative Digital Workplace a success:
Improved Employee Engagement
The present workforce is scattered and the line between their personal and professional lives is blurred. Thus, it is important to keep them significantly engaged so that they like what they are doing. Collaboration in a digital workplace keeps all the employees, whether working on-premise or remotely, aware of the nitty-gritties of the work being done at the organization. Features such as news feed, content sharing attributes, instant messages facilities and recent updates, etc keep employees engaged and up-to-date.
Knowledge Management
To facilitate knowledge sharing is to ensure that it is retained within the workplace, and shared among employees so that they can work effectively as a team. According to Gartner, “Knowledge management is a discipline that promotes an integrated approach to identifying, capturing, evaluating, retrieving, and sharing all of an enterprise’s information assets. These assets may include databases, documents, policies, procedures, and previously un-captured expertise and experience in individual workers.”
It ensures all relevant information and resources are easily accessible when needed. Organizations must give employees the tools to ensure that they can share the knowledge they possess. This all leads to faster and more effective decision-making and easier collaboration.
Document Sharing and Content Management
Collaboration at a digital workplace simplifies the hassle of document sharing. It’s no longer necessary to shuffle important documents backward and forward with edits by email or hard copy. A cloud-based CMS will mean that documents and projects can be stored so that they are accessible to everyone working on the project at the same time. This is great news for today’s workplace, where employees and partners tend to be scattered around the globe. Additionally, managing content is one of the important aspects where employees are distributed. The most recent documents updated or the trending ones of a department are available on a single platform.
Businesses are looking to free themselves from office locations and working hours. The up-and-coming workforce is digitally savvy, so, enterprises need to take advantage of that skillset and provide a digital workplace that will support effective collaboration, and that will drive innovation any time, any place, and on any device.
These days SharePoint Intranets are designed in a manner that boosts productivity through improved communication and collaboration. It ensures that it has the right tools to keep all the employees in the organization engaged and allows free flow of communication among all the employees.
Want to know more about how Intranet can improve Digital Collaboration? Click here. Also, share your comments below. We’d love to hear from you!
