Streamline your digital workplace for 2020.

Digital workplace was one of the most widely discussed topics of the year 2019 and rightly so. We saw a whole lot of notice and significance being given to Digital Workplace over traditional workplace compared to previous year.

The real holistic approach towards digital workplace.

Being ahead in terms of tech trends gives an elbow room to leave behind existing players to newcomers, so does the right ecosystem. No matter where in the digital journey a company is, it is essential that a digital ecosystem is established to improve performance and assist with interactions outside the company.

A well functioning digital ecosystem allows an organization to focus its energies on facilitating business value by removing any frustrations linked to outdated, legacy B2B services. Furthermore, digital ecosystems add value to customer relationships by helping companies consistently meet service-level agreements (SLAs), provide fast fixes and quickly surface expectations.

For the years before that, organizations struggled with forming a well performing cohesive set of tools that spared them of all their woes but as we advanced it became more plain sailing by the day. Speaking of now, IT has focused on doing the rounds around concepts such as cloud migration, automation, AI, big data and blockchain in the modern digital workplace so much so that industry insiders thought of it as rearranging the same furniture in a room.

The tools for managing an digital workplace can fall into the following categories:

• Project management tools, such as Agile software development tools, task management software and issue tracking systems;
• Research applications, including data storage and visualization, resource libraries and archives;
• Engagement tools, like email marketing, donor management tools and customer relationship management (CRM) software;
• Collaboration tools, including email, file sharing, instant messaging and video conferencing;
• Public platforms, such as websites, mobile apps and social media channels; and
• Knowledge management platforms, like intranets and wikis.

What 2020 looks like?

When making plans for 2020 digital workplace projects and initiatives it’s important to think about the bigger picture. What are the high-level and the more specific trends that will impact your agenda of work for the year ahead? Where are the opportunities to make a real difference? What are the challenges we may face? The world of digital and intelligent workplaces and how employees experience them is evolving at a frenzied pace so keeping apace of current trends has real value.

• The strategic importance of a digital workplace is perpetually growing. The strategic theme is very common along an organisation.
• The strategic value of Digital Workplace is a running theme across persistent interactions with clients, contractors and such experts who are actively investing in such tools and platforms.
• Gartner predicted that by 2022, 70% of the white-collar employees will interact with a chat bot every day. Depending on your sources, AI could potentially be a pathway to a dystopian future without any jobs for mankind. But, in 2020 AI is only going to help us become more efficient and automating mundane tasks that aren’t that interesting.
• All people-focused digital workplaces triumph over those which aren’t. The reason behind it is simple, robustly designed and congenital interfaces bring real world benefits.

During 2020 we can expect to see:

• A greater emphasis on accessibility that matches the commitments leading organisations are making to support diversity and inclusion (D&I).
• More effort to address employee concerns over the privacy of their personal data, building on the compliance-driven requirements to meet GDPR.
• More digital workplaces supporting flexible working patterns by enabling work to happen from anywhere.
• A survey from LinkedIn Learning found that workload and the associated challenges around maintaining a good work-life balance was the biggest cause of workplace stress.
• In 2020 we think this will be a major strategic objective for digital workplace teams, either delivering on that single view or simplifying the application landscape for employees. It is perfectly possible to do something about this, even in the most complex, global organisation.

Tips for 2020:

Build a strong core for your digital workplace through technology:

From the latest sales enablement tools to the recruitment of your digital workers, it doesn’t matter how advanced your new technology is — if you do not have the right digital ecosystem in place, the technology will either not work or be extremely limited in its output. Each digital tool should not be viewed in isolation, but instead seen as a cog in your tech infrastructure which needs to be able to fully integrate with existing systems.

Train employees about everyday AI solutions:

AI, machine learning and automation are the subject of intense media and business attention. For example, one of our most popular bots uses AI to remind employees to complete their employee directory profiles and then facilitates the actual completion. The possibilities around AI will also continue to extend.

Automate manual tasks:

Although once viewed as a futuristic buzzword, AI now fits so seamlessly into modern work life that it can often go under the radar for many employees. Users either adopt these AI digital workplace solutions intuitively or can be brought up to speed through a series of automatic prompts or videos.

Making sure your teams are on top of the latest AI innovations provided in the everyday programs they’re using will help streamline the digital workplace 2020 workflows and improve enterprise-wide output on a daily basis.

Address technology gaps:

A good digital workplace isn’t just determined by the innovative technology it implements. Digital workplace strategy must, above all, focus on the enterprise-wide user adoption of its systems and software.

A major challenge to this objective is the generation gap. Compared to today’s four generations, the average workforce will be made up of five generations for the first time in history in 2020. By 2025, millennials are predicted to account for 75% of the global workforce. As a result of this, companies can’t rely on a one-size fits all approach to the workplace, due to the diverse needs of their multi-generational workforce and age-specific preferences impacting varying attitudes towards technology.

Choosing software that is complex in its back end but easy to use is one of the main ways organizations can ensure even the least tech-savvy employees are benefiting from tech innovation.

Prepare to take the digital workplace home:

In previous years, enterprise trends have often been contained within the digital workplace itself. However, with the prediction that 83% of enterprises will shift workloads to the cloud by 2020, we’ll start to see a shift from the digital workplace as its own entity, to part of integrated modern working life, because employees will be able to work from any location using apps that are supported across multiple devices.

We are passionate about digital transformation and about digital workplace technology that empowers people to do their best work. If you’re as excited as we are about the potential for the intelligent workplace then come and partner with us. Get in touch, let’s see how Crrux can support you.

Shristi Verma is a communication designer at Crrux, a collaborative digital workplace solution to manage marketing, sales and support for your business.