Have you ever wondered how a #digitalworkplace could enhance your company’s performance? If you’re unfamiliar with this expression, don’t worry; it doesn’t involve adding a new professional to your team or diving into the Metaverse à la Zuckerberg. Instead, it is a strategic approach “aimed at fostering an innovative and effective way of working, improving engagement, the digital employee experience and the overall agility of the workforce.”
We delved deep into this subject during a webinar hosted in collaboration with P-Lab (“Digital Workplace – facilitating seamless collaboration, optimising processes and strengthening the brand”), which we will summarise below.
P-LAB launched the Jinee Platform, which unifies all communications and
processes in a single platform, and serves as a pillar in building the Phygital Enterprise.
According to Rosario Sica, co-founder and CEO of OpenKnowledge, the Phygital Enterprise is “the natural and advanced evolution of the Digital Workplace”, signifying the progression of collaborative logics and practices.
In his article titled “From the Digital Workplace to the Phygital Enterprise,” published in the Harvard Business Review Italia, Sica outlines five steps that drive the transformation of workplaces through technology. It starts with Intranet 1.0, such as websites for employees aimed at providing a unified and fast information tool. Next comes Intranet 2.0, characterised by the addition of a virtual collaborative environment within the company. The next step passes through the Social Intranet, where relational aspects (supported by various tools like tagging, wikis, blogs, forums, etc.) gain strategic importance. It culminates with the advanced stage of the Digital Workplace.
The challenge of Jinee is to use a single platform and interface to extend the organisation’s reach to remote or off-site personnel without duplicating or exporting the systems it already uses.
Let’s begin with the fundamentals to gain a better understanding of the Collaborative Enterprise concept.
WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR A SHARED SPACE?
Over the past two years, work has adopted a more hybrid approach. Remote workers (i.e. those in smart working mode or full remote mode) often require access to documents or information originating from various departments within the company.
Typically, communication occurs through emails, WhatsApp messages or other Intranet tools. These modes of communication lead to the dispersion of information that, instead of being organised and centralised in one location, travels down side ‘roads’ and becomes lost, causing confusion and hindering workflow efficiency. Additionally, many companies pay little attention to IT security, which makes the “journey” of such information extremely risky, with data leaks, phishing, and various types of attacks significantly increasing year after year).
—> A unified shared digital workplace would enhance the security and organisation of the internal sharing of materials and documents.
HOW WOULD A SHARED SPACE DIRECTLY BENEFIT BUSINESS MANAGERS?
The approval of shared documents or materials requires extreme clarity, especially in remote work settings. After receiving notifications through conventional channels (such as email or text messages), company managers responsible for “signing off” on the projects must autonomously connect to the relevant applications (if accessible remotely) in order to complete the required operation. This process requires considerable time and mental resources (e.g. entering login credentials, retrieving requests or searching for the case file to be approved).
HOW DOES A DIGITAL WORKPLACE ENHANCE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE?
—> A digital workplace would speed up the flow, simplifying the approval process
A 2020 Deloitte study revealed that an integrated digital workplace significantly improves the employee experience, boosting employee morale throughout the organisation. Why?
1. It reduces the cognitive burden on users, leading to greater productivity and reduced fatigue through the use of a single digital tool
2. Employees no longer need to remember and manage login credentials for multiple platforms
3. It reduces employee stress by providing a single hub, which also leads to higher performance
4. It ensures high levels of security while facilitating easier and faster data access
5. It increases the involvement of people in the communication processes
It improves working and communication conditions for personnel, leading to enhanced employee experience, among other benefits. According to additional research by Wakefield, having a digital workplace also results in higher productivity and, subsequently, revenue growth.
