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How mature is your digital workplace?

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What leading organizations discover from the DWG Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark

The Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark is a critical tool as we begin our journey. It has allowed us to establish a ‘baseline’ to show our starting point – with clear guidance on where we need to go.

Kevin Olp Northwestern Mutual

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2How mature is your digital workplace? What leading organizations discover from the DWG Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark

REPORTS

Other recent DWG research

Evidence-based Intranet Success:Best practices revealed by benchmarking data analysisA report for DWG members onlyConfidential

Evidence-based intranet success: Best practices revealed by benchmarking data analysis In this groundbreaking analysis of 10+ years of intranet benchmarking data, DWG reveals unique intranet management insights and best practices for practitioners. With over 100 pages, this report provides members with a guide book on what it takes to achieve intranet success, including action plans for improvement and the data to help make informed decisions. Download the executive summary or full report (DWG members only): www.digitalworkplacegroup.com/resources/download-reports/evidence-based-intranet-success

All our research reports are available for download by DWG members in the Research section of the DWG extranet.

Digital workplace governance: Key components for getting it rightWhat does it take to put governance in place across the digital workplace? This research explores the advantages and challenges as well as the key elements of digital workplace governance, including both the functional and people aspects. Best practice is brought to life through case studies from six pioneering organizations including IKEA and Scottish Government. Download the executive summary or full report (DWG members only): http://digitalworkplacegroup.com/resources/download-reports/digital-workplace-governance

Understanding the relationship between organizational culture and the digital workplace Culture matters. Whether you’re seeking to change it, sustain it, save it or create it, culture plays a role within our organizations – and within the digital workplace. This research note focuses on the elements of culture that intranet and digital workplace professionals need to consider as part of their wider programme. It examines 13 specific cultural values and their impact on the digital workplace. Download the executive summary or full report (DWG members only): http://digitalworkplacegroup.com/resources/download-reports/understanding-the-relationship-between-organizational-culture-and-the-digital-workplace

Other recent DWG research

REPORTS

Measuring Internal Communications: Targeted metrics that demonstrate impactThis report builds on DWG’s previous research into metrics, providing a detailed guide to the effective measurement of internal communications. It analyses results from benchmarking to establish the current state of internal communications metrics and considers how best to measure impact and engagement, cautioning against some of the pitfalls: drawing wrong conclusions; choosing the wrong things to measure; and getting carried away with the numbers. Download the executive summary or full report (DWG members only): www.digital-workplacegroup.com/resources/download-reports/measuring-internal-communications

Successful Social Intranets: Creating business value through strategic alignment and adoption planningLack of strategy, spotty adoption and the absence of a strong business case have been identified as key barriers to successfully deploying social intranets. This new report seeks to provide clear guidance on building the business case for a social intranet as well as addressing the challenges of adoption, and proposes that value must be rooted in the purpose behind each technological element selected rather than the technology itself. Download the executive summary or full report (DWG members only): www.digitalwork-placegroup.com/resources/download-reports/successful-social-intranets

Becoming a Digital Workplace Leader: The big shift from intranet managementAwareness is growing of the need to address the fragmented employee experience of digital tools in many organizations. This situation can represent an exciting, if challenging, opening for those in intranet and related professions to step up and take the lead in the digital world of work. This new DWG report investigates how intranet professionals can leverage this opportunity to advance their careers and teams. Download the executive summary or full report (DWG members only): www.digitalworkplacegroup.com/resources/download-reports/becoming-a-digital-workplace-leader

All our research reports are available for download by DWG members in the Research section of the DWG extranet.

The world of work is experiencing an unprecedented transformation driven by technology. In this follow-up to The Digital Workplace: How technology is liberating work, Paul Miller,

CEO and founder of the Digital Workplace Group, is joined by co-author Elizabeth Marsh to pick up the story and help organizations create digital workplaces fit for the future.

A unique combination of thought leadership and practical advice, this book will bring the reader up to date with the latest developments, such as: no jobs but lots of work; the new digital work ethic; why “teamwork” needs a makeover; the human-centred digital workplace; what this means for physical workplaces; and why the revolution starts with education.

It also provides essential guidance on how to deliver a productive and engaging digital workplace in your organization, explaining how to: assess maturity; make the business case;

set up the programme; and measure progress.

See more about The Digital Renaissance of Work: Delivering digital workplaces fit for the future at:www.digitalworkplacegroup.com/the-digital-renaissance-of-work/#content

The Digital Renaissance of Work: Delivering digital workplaces fit for the future

Paul Miller and Elizabeth Marsh

http://www.digitalworkplacegroup.com/resources/download-reports/evidence-based-intranet-success

http://www.digitalworkplacegroup.com/resources/download-reports/evidence-based-intranet-success

http://members.digitalworkplacegroup.com/?res2016

http://digitalworkplacegroup.com/resources/download-reports/digital-workplace-governance

http://digitalworkplacegroup.com/resources/download-reports/understanding-the-relationship-between-organizational-culture-and-the-digital-workplace

http://digitalworkplacegroup.com/resources/download-reports/understanding-the-relationship-between-organizational-culture-and-the-digital-workplace

Contents


1. Executive summary 4

2. Definitions 7

3. The evolution of the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark 8

4. About the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark 9 4.1 The benchmarking process 9 4.2 The Digital Workplace Maturity Map 9

5. How the benchmark delivers value 11 5.1 The 7 key benefits 11 5.2 Scenarios 12

6. Insights from Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmarking 16

7. Case study: Northwestern Mutual 19

8. Acknowledgements 23

Confidentiality This report is the property of the Digital Workplace Group (DWG). It is protected by international copyright law and conventions. Users of the report have the right to use the report solely for their own internal information purposes. They may not disclose, copy, disseminate, redistribute or publish the report, or any portion of or excerpts from it, to any other party. Reproduction of the report in any form or by any means is forbidden without the written permission of a Director of DWG. Digital Workplace Group is the trading name of Digital Workplace Forum Group Limited. Digital Workplace Forum Group Limited wholly owns the copyright described. Copyright © 2016 Digital Workplace Group. All rights reserved.


Executive summary1The digital workplace matters. How employees experience the digital environment of work which they use to do their jobs is critical. The digital workplace can impact productivity, engagement, risk, costs, efficiency, learning and even customer service. It can influence the bottom line and be a source of competitive advantage.1 The digital workplace is an asset that has strategic importance for organizations and this will only increase in the future.

The digital workplace is a concept and term that has been building momentum over the past five years and is now firmly in the mainstream. This is now underlined by its use by the likes of Gartner2 and Microsoft.3 More importantly it is being used within organizations who have either established, or are in the process of establishing, a digital workplace strategy or initiative. It has also been adopted by teams that need a more holistic, broad term that encompasses the intranet, which is increasingly acting as the starting point to multiple applications across the digital ecosystem.

In reality, most organizations are only at the very start of thinking and acting holistically about their digital workplace. For example, a survey of Digital Workplace Group (DWG) members at the end of 2015 established that less than a quarter had a formal digital workplace programme or function in place. Meanwhile, defining a digital workplace strategy, roadmap or service components was the most commonly mentioned strategic objective amongst DWG members.4

The need for dataMoving forward with the digital workplace agenda within any organization is not necessarily straightforward. There may be a lack of consensus among stakeholders about how to proceed, as well as no objective or independent data about the organization’s digital workplace.

This research paper looks at the contribution that evaluating and benchmarking the maturity of an organization’s digital workplace can make to understanding, and therefore advancing, the digital workplace.

It focuses on DWG’s experience of launching its Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark (DWMB).

1 DWG (2012). Digital Workplace Business Case. Digital Workplace Group (http://digitalworkplacegroup.com/resources/download-reports/digital-workplace-business-case, accessed 30.08.16).

2 Gartner (2016). The digital workplace. Gartner IT Glossary (www.gartner.com/it-glossary/digital-workplace, accessed 30.08.16).

3 Jacqui Griffiths (2016). Optimising the Digital Workplace. Microsoft: Enterprise (https://enterprise.microsoft.com/en-us/industries/banking-and-capital-markets/optimising-digital-workplace, accessed 30.08.16).

4 DWG (2016). DWG Member Survey 2015. Digital Workplace Group extranet (http://members.digitalworkplacegroup.com/?survey15, accessed 30.08.16).


How the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark adds value

Assessing digital workplace maturity through an independent evaluation, mapped to a best practice model and then ranked against peers, has clear benefits, including:

• Making a broad and complex subject more tangible.

• Enabling and facilitating meaningful conversations with senior leaders.

• Giving a unique holistic view of the digital workplace, which places individual channels and components in a wider context.

• Identifying specific challenges and opportunities in the digital workplace to define actions and next steps.

• Helping track the success of digital workplace initiatives.

• Providing a common reference point for different stakeholders.

• Establishing credibility and validation for ideas and actions around the digital workplace.

Scenarios

In turn, these benefits can help in the following scenarios, often encountered by organizations when:

• It’s imperative to get the digital workplace on the strategic agenda but stakeholders lack awareness.

• An organization is developing a digital workplace initiative, strategy or roadmap and needs reliable information to define it.

• An organization wants to track the progress of an existing digital workplace programme or initiative, or needs a baseline to measure from at the start of such a programme.

• Internal change is required to deliver external digital transformation but it is not obvious what this is or the best way forward.

• Other major organizational change is required, such as a “one company” initiative after a merger.

• Considering the approach and roadmap for a major platform change, such as a move to Office 365 or a new collaboration platform.

• An IT rationalization and simplification project needs to be more strategically focused, or to identify accompanying opportunities to improve the experience of the digital workplace.

• A company is seeking to better align its physical and digital workplace, for example, when planning the move to a new building or developing an agile working initiative.

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Six insights

So far, insights resulting from the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmarks undertaken by DWG include:

1. Early adopters of digital workplace initiatives are wanting to measure progress.

2. Achieving a true digital workplace is a long-term goal and doesn’t happen overnight.

3. Organizations need to push the digital workplace up the strategic agenda.

4. Lack of investment in change management is constraining progress.

5. Collaboration and digital services are maturing in some organizations.

6. Every individual organization’s digital workplace journey is unique.

Methodology

This report is based on a number of primary interviews as well as the output and reports from all the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmarks already carried out by DWG to date. It is also informed by the author’s first-hand experience as an evaluator for the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark. It includes an in-depth case study from Northwestern Mutual.

In the evolving digital worlds of work, we need data and

metrics in a world of opinion. DWG’s experts draw on 15 years of evidence and analytics from over 700 evaluations to draw intelligent conclusions, industry insights and

actionable recommendations.

Paul Miller CEO and Founder, DWG

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A number of terms are used throughout this report.

Digital workplace

There is broad agreement that the digital workplace is all about the user experience of the wider digital ecosystem of workplace applications and tools provided by or sanctioned by an organization. However, consultancies and practitioners sometimes disagree on the exact definition.

DWG defines the digital workplace as: “The experience of work delivered through the collective use of connected devices, software and interfaces. This includes intranets, unified communications, microblogging, HR systems, email, mobile applications, collaborative spaces, supply chain and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.”

A more general definition sometimes used by DWG is “all the digital tools and services provided to allow employees to do their jobs”. This is important as it firmly establishes that every organization already has a digital workplace, and that this may actually be very advanced in some areas (although not across the entire spectrum), even if there has been no formal digital workplace programme.

Maturity models

A maturity model is a business tool frequently used to assess different elements or themes within organizations, such as culture or technology. It has been commonly applied to some of the disciplines complementary to intranets, for example, Knowledge Management and Internal Communications. Maturity models tend to include a number of steps (frequently five), which run from least mature to most mature, and also may be divided into a number of sub-themes.

Benchmarking

Benchmarking is a commonly used way of comparing processes against best practices, other organizations and the averages of groups, for example, industry sectors.

Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark

The Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark (DWMB) is a proprietary evaluation model developed by the Digital Workplace Group to benchmark organizations against their peers.

Definitions2


Evolution of intranet

benchmarking


benchmarking

The expanding scope and

remit of intranets


remit of intranets

Evolution of the concept of the digital workplace


Development of the digital workplace

map

Development of the digital workplace

map

Launch of the Digital Workplace

Maturity Benchmark


Maturity Benchmark

The Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark has evolved over the past 15 years or so, in response to growing awareness of the digital workplace and alongside DWG’s evolving intranet benchmarking service. This timeline gives some important context to the benchmark as it is today.

Timeline


benchmarking


remit of intranets


Development of the Digital Workplace

Maturity Map


Maturity Benchmark

As the Intranet Benchmarking Forum (IBF), the Digital Workplace Group (DWG) starts to benchmark leading-edge intranets. The methodology is designed to be independent and robust. The benchmarks cover four areas: Usability, Strategy & Governance, Communications & Collaboration, Metrics & Performance.

Intranets are changing; technology and the internet have developed; user behaviour has become more sophisticated; and organizations more complex. Increasingly, intranets are no longer just a publishing channel. Personalization, integration of social tools, surfacing of data and more optimization for mobile devices are pushing forward. IBF’s benchmarking model is reviewed and tweaked to reflect changes in practice.

Reflecting the expanded scope of intranets, as well as a growing interest in the strategic value of the employee experience of workplace technologies, pioneers such as DWG Founder and CEO, Paul Miller, and Jane McConnell start to talk about the concept of the “digital workplace”. In 2010, the DWG research programme produces its first Digital Workplace Maturity Model, providing some clarity about the scope of the wider digital ecosystem of workplace tools. In 2013, IBF rebrands as DWG.

Following interest from a number of organizations, DWG seeks a way to further develop a digital workplace maturity model that can be used in a more structured way. Workshops with various client organizations, digital practitioners and DWG team members are held in New York and London. After some lively debate, the key output is a new Digital Workplace Maturity Map, which matches elements within the digital workplace to five levels of maturity. The map goes through further refinement.

Taking inspiration from its intranet benchmarking process, which has been operating for more than a decade, DWG evolves the Digital Workplace Maturity Map into the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark service. After a successful pilot, the service launches in 2015. In 2016, DWG publishes the first league table ranking those organizations who have undertaken the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark. This is confidential to those organizations taking part and forms part of the benchmark reporting output.

3The evolution of the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark

2002–2005

2006–2009

2010–2013

2014

2015–2016


4.1 The benchmarking processDWG’s Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark follows a standard process, designed to strike an optimal balance between gathering sufficient evidence to complete a useful benchmark while minimizing the time commitment required of those involved.

The benchmark follows this basic process:

• DWG asks for some initial information about the digital workplace.

• Independent, confidential interviews are carried out with a number of stakeholders representing different aspects of the digital workplace. These interviews are usually conducted remotely.

• Based on the interviews and other evidence gathered, two highly experienced evaluators, with practitioner experience in a digital workplace role, score the digital workplace against DWG’s Digital Workplace Maturity Map. Two evaluators are always involved in order to reduce the potential for bias.

• The key deliverables are a written report and accompanying presentation, both featuring insights from the evaluation and the scores, which have also been benchmarked against peer organizations.

4.2 The Digital Workplace Maturity MapThe structure of the interviews, scoring, benchmarking against peers and benchmark deliverables are all based on DWG’s Digital Workplace Maturity Model. This represents seven dimensions across the entire digital workplace, which are then evaluated at five levels.

4 About the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark

What this benchmark covers through a vendor-neutral, practitioner-led

measurement system is a broad-scale assessment of how any large digital workplace is performing, right now. No opinion, no self-assessment, but external data and metrics that any digital strategy group can use as a planning and prioritization tool.

Paul Miller CEO and Founder, DWG


4Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark – ABC

44dwg

YourJourney

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Introduction

Copyright Digital Workplace Group 2015 6

Digital Workplace Maturity Model

Excel

High

Mid

Low

Base

Communication & Business Intelligence

Collaboration & Community

Services & Workflow

Structure & Coherence

Mobility & Flexibility

Strategic Alignment & Management

Organizational Readiness

Comms, content and intelligence fuse

Seamless collaboration outside and in

Operational effectiveness and productivity

Unified. Any place, any device. The virtual organization

Governance considers all aspects of DW. Total strategic alignment

People and personal management techniques embedded

Unified

Structured and flexible content; established dashboards

Services and applications used online by all

Integrated Apps and consumer- ization

Online collaboration as a way of working

Consolidated strategy and governance of DW

People and personal management techniques refined

Multiple, managed comms; dashboards emerging

Wide usage of disconnected tools

Aggregation in progress

Widespread mobility, smartphones

Active but separate governance of majority of DW

Initiatives to improve awareness/ choices/people management

Key services online

Disconnected sites; emergent desktop

Basic apps online; manual back-office

Limited mobility with VPN/laptop. Mobile email/ calendaring

Ad hoc use of collaboration tools

Some governance of parts of DW; some strategic alignment

Central comms activity; static periphery

Static information

Some policy, e-learning andIT supportdocumentation

No online services

No structure No specific collaboration support

Access from desktop in office

IT management but no strategic alignment

Some technology training and IT support

Figure 1: The seven dimensions and five levels of maturity within DWG’s Digital Workplace Maturity Map.

The report shows how the organization scores against the Digital Workplace Maturity Map. Additional information is included in detail; for example, specific points within each dimension, recommendations and a league table showing the position against peers.Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark – ABC

Copyright Digital Workplace Group 2015 10

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igital Workplace M

aturity

Your Digital Workplace Maturity

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Comm. & Business Intelligence Collaboration & Community Services & Workflow Structure & Coherence Mobility & Flexibility Strategic Alignment & Management Organizational Readiness

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Excel

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Communication & Business

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Community Services & Workflow





Overall maturity level is “MID”

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Figure 2: An example of how an organization has scored in the benchmark.

One of the things we do is review our

benchmarks every two years as we see how things are

evolving. In this normal review cycle we can anticipate that the model will evolve over time. We have developed our original Digital Workplace Maturity Map and it continues to be relevant.

Nancy Goebel Managing Director, Member &

Benchmarking Services, DWG


5.1 The 7 key benefitsBased on the feedback from DWG members who have undertaken a Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark, there are a number of key benefits that result from the process.

1. Make a complex and broad subject more tangible and specific

The term “digital workplace” can be a broad, complex and even abstract concept that is open to interpretation, and its use and application can vary widely from organization to organization. This can be a barrier to engaging stakeholders. The output from a benchmark makes the digital workplace specific, tangible and actionable, mapping it to a portfolio of services and channels, and reflecting organizational characteristics such as culture and management practices.

2. Accelerate conversations with senior leaders

Moving the digital workplace agenda or initiative forward requires conversations with senior stakeholders. These discussions can focus either on the broader picture or on more specific parts of the digital workplace, such as HR technology.

Having authoritative external data, which is independent and benchmarks against other companies, can be a very powerful way to frame conversations, gain attention and improve credibility.

3. Provide a holistic view across channels

A Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark provides a holistic view of an organization’s capabilities across the whole of its internal digital portfolio. It incorporates channels and practices that may influence and impact each other but are not always considered together when thinking about digital strategy, roadmaps and operations. It’s rare to get a consolidated and broad view and insight across the entire digital workplace. The benchmark helps stakeholders to view their own channels in the broader context and to consider wider issues such as organizational readiness and culture.

4. Identify specific challenges and opportunities

Although a Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark is wide in scope, findings in specific areas are also included. An organization can see in which areas they are already mature, as well as where more attention needs to be directed. Having a view of the maturity of all the elements within the portfolio also means teams can spot synergies and opportunities. The benchmark will inform the actions of digital workplace teams.

5. Track progress and success

After launching a digital workplace initiative, many organizations want to track their progress and success. A Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark provides an independently evaluated baseline, or starting point, against which progress can then be measured.

5 How the benchmark delivers value

The report-back meeting was brilliant. We gathered our whole team

around and were able to ask questions. We got a lot out of it. Being able

to have those honest discussions was valuable… We still go back to the benchmarking report, and it’s been kind of our justification as we’ve moved forward and made choices about the site. Being able to have the full report and use it as our backup

for decisions has been very valuable.

Internal communications leader at a major global energy company


6. Provide a common reference point for multiple stakeholders

A digital workplace initiative or project involves multiple stakeholders with a spectrum of views, understandings, priorities and perceptions. To move forward with any digital workplace initiative there needs to be a common understanding reached and a consensus about the way forward. Everybody needs to be on the same page.

7. Provide credibility and validation

For many organizations, advancing the digital workplace is a leap into the unknown. Many teams are already “pushing the envelope” when it comes to advancing the agenda within their own organization. Because the digital workplace industry is emergent, evaluating against a recognized model, as well as benchmarking against peers, can provide validation and credibility for digital workplace teams. The assessment can show they are moving in the right direction and thinking about areas of critical importance.

5.2 ScenariosThe benefits from the benchmark can help teams and organizations in a number of different ways. Here are eight common scenarios where a Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark can make a real difference. These are based on situations at organizations that have actually been benchmarked, as well as common scenarios relating to the digital workplace we’ve observed in various companies.

1. Getting the digital workplace on the agenda

Some organizations have not even started to think about the digital workplace and what it means for them yet. However, there may be some forward-thinking individuals who are trying to push it as a strategic agenda item. We know several Internal Communications and Knowledge Management functions who are trying to move towards a digital workplace but struggling to engage a wider set of senior stakeholders. It may also be that different stakeholders have already considered the advantages of a more powerful, integrated employee experience of workplace technology, but not as yet articulated these thoughts.

A Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark provides a powerful holistic view of the state of the digital workplace across an organization. Even just presenting a view across so many channels and elements can help stakeholders to conceptualize the digital workplace and to understand the strategic benefits of managing it in a more holistic way. Benchmarking against peers can also highlight the need to take action or develop a strategy, and validates what those internally may be saying; for example, teams have presented the results in a stakeholder workshop to drive collective thinking and to get the digital workplace on the agenda.

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The benchmark uncovers areas of value that are

underexploited. Teams can make assets work harder and become more

productive, and also identify areas which can support strategic objectives, such as reducing risk or supporting agile working more effectively.

Nancy Goebel Managing Director, Member &

Benchmarking Services, DWG


2. Developing a digital workplace strategy, initiative or roadmap

Many organizations are now formalizing their approach to the digital workplace, often through a cross-functional structure or steering group. Different organizations will be at different stages. They may be defining a digital workplace strategy, arguing the business case for investment or figuring out the specifics of the roadmap. For all of these stages a thorough understanding of your organization, your employees and your technology landscape is key, making an extensive discovery and research phase an imperative.

If your strategy defines a vision or desired future state, you need to have an idea of the current state of play. How do you get from where the organization is now to where it wants to be? A Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark gives you an independent, comprehensive, but digestible, view of where you are now across the digital workplace. From here you can start to work out how you get from A to B, and the specifics of what you need to do.

3. Tracking progress of an initiative

It’s quite possible that your organization already has a digital workplace initiative underway. A Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark can provide a measurement at a point in time, from which to assess progress and success. For example, Northwestern Mutual has done considerable work in putting in place governance structures and processes, which cover wider aspects of the digital workplace. As the first step, the company has launched a new intranet, the Digital Commons, which is also a gateway to a wider set of applications. The team wished to track and measure the progress of this initiative, so chose to undertake a Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark. Kevin Olp says: “The benchmark really gave us our ‘before’ picture, which we will use as a comparison at each subsequent step. The timing of this is perfect for us as it established our starting point and as we do follow-ups we can see where we are going.”

4. Facilitating major organizational change

Major organizational change is now the norm. Companies are subject to restructurings, mergers and acquisitions, and rebranding. They also go through major strategic change programmes, such as “one company” initiatives that seek to centralize services, standardize processes and drive identity in order to better deliver services as a global company. The external economic and business environment can also be highly turbulent and force change.

Most major change now has technology as an enabler; for example, there might be the need for a global collaboration platform or to develop workflow capability across the spectrum. A Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark can help you plan for organizational change. By having a better understanding of your technology landscape, you can see how best to leverage its capabilities to deliver or cope with the changes ahead.

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5. Planning for platform change

Many organizations choose to invest in a new platform or technology which can deliver a variety of different capabilities. A current popular move is to Office 365. Other organizations may be investing in collaboration or social networking.

Planning an Office 365 roll-out or similar can be tricky. Where should you focus your efforts? Are there dependencies or other issues that need to be addressed in order to get the most out of your investment in the new technology? Are there any further opportunities to use this technology? What are the likely challenges? A Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark gives you both the helicopter view and some of the details, delivering invaluable insight into how to plan your Office 365 or similar implementation, taking into account the employee experience as well as management practices and the change management effort needed. Some of these aspects may not be considered when there is purely a narrow focus on the technology.

6. Streamlining IT operations or consolidation

Applying governance across the entire digital ecosystem can be very difficult for IT functions. Divisions, locations, teams and individuals use, purchase and even build their own systems and applications. This is even more acute in organizations built through acquisition, or with decentralized management. Left unchecked, a proliferation of systems can prove expensive due to system duplication and inefficiencies resulting from a fragmented user experience.

When proliferation reaches a tipping point, global or central IT functions may seek to rationalize or simplify platforms and applications. This kind of programme provides an excellent opportunity to address fundamental issues with the digital workplace, which are usually outside the scope of technology-driven programmes; for example, there may be challenges around governance or culture. The output from a benchmark gives the organization an overview of maturity, helping to identify issues that need to be addressed in order to turn a rationalization programme into a more strategically focused initiative.

7. Aligning the physical and digital workplaces

Some organizations have been investing heavily in new physical offices to enable better, more collaborative, ways of working. This may mean moving to a new facility or headquarters, while others have an active agile working programme, which encourages new ways of working, or allows employees to work flexibly from different locations. Often these initiatives are driven out of the real estate department but with technology as a critical enabler.

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Although real estate departments often work closely with IT and other departments in the organization on specific projects, they do not always work with the wider set of stakeholders, such as HR, Communications or specific lines of business, to think strategically about how technology can work in tandem with physical workplaces, or decide who will help to drive and embed the new ways of working. A Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark can support initiatives to bring closer alignment between the physical and digital workplaces, by providing a wider view across all the digital elements that should be considered. It covers systems that could have an impact (such as a social or collaboration platform), capabilities (such as workflow) as well as considering organizational readiness. This gives valuable context for the actions that will make an agile working programme or office move successful.

8. Enabling externally focused digital transformation

The focus of many “digital transformation” programmes is external, concentrating on the processes and experiences that directly impact customers. These programmes usually have a more direct and immediate impact on the bottom line and, therefore, more easily measurable outcomes and benefits.

However, external digital transformation may depend on having a mature internal digital workplace, either to make the transformation happen at all, or at a pace which truly drives competitive advantage. For example, do all global employees have access to the systems and information they need? Can global employees collaborate? Are employees both engaged and enabled to deliver transformation?

A Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark can provide a critical strategic overview of which areas of the internal digital workplace need to be addressed in order to deliver and reinforce external digital transformation. It can therefore help with planning, defining roadmaps, or retrospectively identifying actions needed to reboot an external digital transformation programme that has failed to deliver.

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Benchmarking means you’re able to gauge where

you are. You can see where you’re ahead, where you’re

behind and where you need to address your attention.

Chris Tubb DWG Benchmarking Lead and

Consultant


As an industry we’re all still learning about the digital workplace, and we’re gaining new insight into practices that are emergent. From the overall output of our Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark to date, we can provide a number of early insights.

Early adopters are measuring the digital workplace

So far, the organizations that have carried out a benchmark have demonstrated mid to high levels of maturity for their digital workplaces. This hints that, so far, the organizations who are attracted to this service have already made significant progress in their digital workplace journey, either as part of a digital workplace initiative or because of separate projects, channels and practices.

We believe that this shows that those seeking to measure their digital workplace (who are therefore more aware of the concept) are already taking a more holistic view of their digital ecosystem, which is reflected in the progress made. However, we also believe that a Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark would deliver significant value to organizations just starting out on their digital workplace journey.

Achieving a true digital workplace is a long-term goal

Even those organizations with high levels of maturity tend to be at the lower end of the “high” scale. This means there is still progress to be made, even in organizations who have already moved forwards and could be regarded as early adopters.

It is also worth noting that only one organization has ever scored an “Excel” (the highest level) in one of the seven dimensions of the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark model. These findings echo DWG’s general observation that it’s still very early days for the digital workplace. Also, the digital workplace is a portfolio that needs ongoing attention, much like any other strategic asset inside an organization. We expect the pace of change in digital workplace practices to be rapid, so many organizations will continue to evolve, even if they have high levels of digital workplace maturity.

Organizations need to push the digital workplace up the strategic agenda

There is still significant development needed in the element of “Strategic alignment and management”. Although one organization scored highly in this area, the average score of the other organizations is significantly lower than the average score of five of the other elements. This is not surprising given that the digital workplace is a new concept.

When looking at the detail within each benchmark, a familiar pattern starts to emerge. Although management practices and governance may be mature around certain key digital channels, such as the intranet or collaboration platform, more work is needed at the level of the whole digital workplace. This involves formalizing and documenting a strategy, vision and roadmap for the digital workplace, which all stakeholders can align to.

6Insights from Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmarking


6Interestingly, the lack of maturity at a strategic level is also recognized by organizations. When DWG ran a digital workplace maturity workshop at a member meeting we asked teams to consider how they would rate their own maturity. There was a clear consensus of mid to low maturity around “Strategic alignment and management”.

Figure 3: Output from a workshop demonstrating self-analysis of digital workplace maturity. The ratings of participating organizations are represented by each line. Organization names have been removed for confidentiality.

Lack of investment in change management is constraining progress

The other element which scored low is “Organizational readiness”. Again, one organization scored highly in this area, but the average score of the other participating companies was significantly lower than in other elements, apart from “Strategic alignment and management”.

This element looks at how advanced practices are in enabling management and employees to use the digital workplace as a way of working. It is clear that more investment in change management is needed in order to enable employees to use digital tools more effectively and to allow them to work more flexibly. There are also some cultural issues that may be holding organizations back, for example, management practices around the use of digital tools may need to evolve to help drive acceptance and therefore wider use.

Collaboration and digital services are maturing in some organizations

Although patterns differ from organization to organization, the two elements where, collectively, the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark scored most highly on average are “Collaboration and community” and “Services and workflow”. This reflects that individual organizations have developed both maturity and experience in these fields; for example, some IT functions are adept at offering digital services to employees within a single sign-on environment. Meanwhile, there are teams providing stewardship both for more formal collaboration (team and workspaces) and social community-based interaction, with good levels of adoption experienced.

COMMUNICATION & BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

COLLABORATION & COMMUNITY

SERVICES & WORKFLOW

STRUCTURE & COHERENCE

MOBILITY & FLEXIBILITY

STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT & MANAGEMENT

ORGANISATIONAL READINESS

Excel

High

Mid

Low

Base


6Every organization’s digital workplace journey is unique

In analysing the detail of digital workplace maturity across different organizations, it’s clear there is a unique pattern for each Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark participant. Some of this is down to organizational characteristics, such as the organization’s culture or the composition of the workforce; for example, one airline had advanced practices across flexibility and mobility, reflecting that many employees need to be highly mobile because of their roles. Sometimes the levels of maturity are a reflection of the success of an individual project, such as the successful roll-out of a collaboration platform. Every organization has successes, challenges and priorities specific to its own individual digital workplace journey.

Organizations are unused to having a wide view of all the elements

of their digital workplaces. This means not only the digital capabilities, such

as the intranet or unified communications, but also the way in which it is managed and governed, and also how digital channels interact with each other. This is the first moment of reflection to try to understand all these topics together.

Chris Tubb, DWG Benchmarking Lead and Consultant


7Northwestern Mutual is a US-based financial services company, headquartered in Milwaukee. With approximately 5,700 employees, the company has a rich heritage of helping families and businesses achieve financial security, extending back nearly 160 years. The company has been recognized in 2016 by Fortune magazine as one of the “World’s most admired” life insurance companies.

The company is currently building a state-of-the-art new headquarters in Milwaukee (to be known as the Northwestern Mutual Tower and Commons), which will open in 2017. It is also building a digital workplace in parallel, with a brand new intranet at its core.

This new channel – the Digital Commons – echoes the name of its physical twin and aims to integrate with and be the front door into the wider digital ecosystem. As Kevin Olp, Northwestern Mutual’s Director of Creative Solutions and Company Initiatives, explains: “The intranet is at the core of a larger, digital workplace. It ties in with work we’re doing to create an inspiring workforce experience. We’re building our digital workplace at the same time as our physical workplace because we believe that it takes a strong digital workplace to fully optimize our investment in the Tower and Commons. We seek to create a seamless experience for our workforce.”

This approach is very innovative for Northwestern Mutual. The previous iteration of the intranet (MutualNet) was a more traditional publishing channel, but the Digital Commons, launched in early 2016, is what Kevin describes as “an application that has other applications within it that employees work with on a daily basis.”

Case study: Northwestern Mutual


Figure 4: The homepage of the Digital Commons.

For example, employees are able to add links to personal apps they work with every day by searching through a catalogue and adding icons. These are displayed prominently on their personal homepage. Within the first five months, 91% of employees have already customized their links, exceeding the project team’s target for the first year.

The launch of the first iteration of the Digital Commons is only the first step on a longer, more ambitious, digital workplace journey that will see more integration of systems, closer alignment with the new physical headquarters and an ever better experience for employees.

7


Establishing the starting point

Three months before the launch of the Digital Commons, the team from Northwestern Mutual, who were already members of the Digital Workplace Group, decided to undertake a Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark. They had carried out intranet benchmarking before, but the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark would give the project team a view that is wider in scope, enabling a critical insight into what they see as a more strategic and fundamental “digital workplace journey”.

Kevin Olp explains: “The Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark is a critical tool for us as we begin our journey. When we did the benchmark we had not yet launched the Digital Commons. The benchmark really gave us our ‘before’ picture, which we will use as a comparison at each subsequent step. The timing of this is perfect for us as it established our starting point and as we do follow-ups we can see where we are going.”

Benchmarking against other organizations, bringing the objectivity associated with this exercise, was also important to Northwestern Mutual. “It’s difficult to achieve an objective comparison of your digital workplace relative to peers in your industry or to organizations of similar sizes. The ability to benchmark is powerful. The world continues to advance and if you can’t peg yourself to what people are doing today, you won’t be able to truly validate your progress.”

Insights into practice

The benchmark also gave Kevin and his team insight into specific areas of practice, some particularly relevant to the launch of the Digital Commons.

He comments: “The benchmark touched upon many different aspects of digital workplace maturity, some of which we’re interested in right now and some we’ll be more interested in further down the road. For example, we’ve invested a lot of time and effort in governance over the last two years, so we wanted to see how we compared for governance and sustainability. Although I was expecting that the score would be higher, we were actually able to use the benchmark to identify those areas to improve upon, such as content curation across the whole enterprise. This intelligence gives us what we need to move forward.”

Kevin stresses that, while the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark delivers tangible insight, it’s also different from intranet benchmarking. “The difference with Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmarking is the breadth of scope. It combines many of the components of the other benchmarks DWG provides, but gives a better and more holistic picture. That said, you perhaps don’t get the deep dive on a particular topic that you do with intranet benchmarking. It is another tool in our benchmarking toolbox.”

7


The process

Overall, Northwestern Mutual found the process of benchmarking a very positive one. Kevin explains: “It was critical that it wasn’t just the opinion of one individual. We were able to engage different stakeholders as well as members of our project team. That gave us more of an objective picture. It does require some investment in time to go through the interview process, but DWG does a good job to keep that time to a minimum. Some questions are easy but the ones yielding the most information and value are those that tend to be harder. In many ways we’re taking the workplace we have today and looking at it through a new prism so sometimes there’s not a quick, easy answer to give!”

The output (a document and related presentation) also had value. “It was easy to understand and relate back to the work that we were doing so we could utilize it. The report is outstanding and the process of having the DWG consultant present to the key group of stakeholders and explain what all the findings mean was a critical part of the process. It was very useful having that context and the ability to answer questions.”

Driving intelligent conversations with stakeholders

Another key practical use of the insights and data from the benchmark is the conversations it enables with senior leaders and other key stakeholders. Insights from the benchmark are frequently used in targeted conversations with senior leaders and the fact that this is an independent, objective view means it is taken more seriously. Kevin Olp says that “knowing we aren’t a leader in the digital workplace, but we’re actually not that far behind” has helped him to secure more focus and funding for digital workplace projects.

While the benchmark data confirmed that, compared with some other organizations, Northwestern Mutual’s digital workplace is not the most mature, it did validate the company’s overall approach. The team felt that the benchmark output shows they are definitely heading in the right direction.

“It gave us confirmation about what we’re already doing. It’s easy to brush that off but it’s incredibly important to have that external view. Our role is to help change the way we work, and my ability to access for senior leaders this data that shows how others are doing is irreplaceable.”

Charting a rational course

When asked what advice he would give to other organizations considering carrying out a Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark or similar service, Kevin says: “If you do not know where you currently are, then there is no way to chart a rational course for where you want to go. The best way is to know where you are in relation to your peers. This is what the Digital Workplace Maturity Benchmark provides.”

7


Special thanks to Kevin Olp from Northwestern Mutual, and Nancy Goebel and Chris Tubb from Digital Workplace Group for being interviewed for this report.

Other acknowledgements

The report production team also included: Elizabeth Marsh (commissioning editor), Alison Chapman (editorial) and Toast Design (design).

Acknowledgements8

About the authorSteve Bynghall is a research associate, benchmark evaluator and knowledge manager for DWG. He is also a freelance consultant, researcher and writer specializing in knowledge management, collaboration, intranet and social business. Steve previously worked at accountancy firm BDO in a variety of knowledge roles, including managing its global extranet programme.

Overview Managing an intranet, collaboration platform or digital workplace programme for a large organization can be a lonely, thankless task and it’s growing more complex every year.

of servicesGet DWG on your side

MembershipLearning and industry best practice

BenchmarkingObjective data for making critical decisions

ConsultingIndependent expertise to guide strategy and plans

1 2 3

Sample members and clients

Real-world practitioners: Our benchmarkers and consultants have previously managed intranets and digital workplaces at major organizations. Our expertise is rooted in experience.

Large company experience: For over a decade we have worked with Fortune 1000/FT 500 and similar organizations. Our expertise and insights focus on the challenges and needs of that group.

Measurement and research focus: Our consulting and evaluations are underpinned by measurement and our rich research programme. Our mantra is “data and metrics in a world of opinion”.

Independence: All our work is vendor neutral and our evaluation framework is technology agnostic.

An expert partner to drive change and success

We provide independent expertise to large organizations to help them advance their intranets and broader digital workplaces through three distinct services:

1 Confidential member forum

2 Sophisticated benchmarking

3 Bespoke consulting projects.

Strengths of the Digital Workplace Group

• Benchmarking evaluations

• Content management

• Collaboration platforms and social business

• Digital workplace roadmaps

• Enterprise mobile

• External insights and research

• Facilitated workshops and innovation labs

• HRIS and other self-service applications

• Metrics and measurement

• Search and findability

• Strategy and governance

• Stakeholder engagement

• Usability, navigation and design

• User research

Confidential learning, ongoing improvement

The DWG Member Forum is a confidential, members-only benchmarking group. Since 2002, we have carried out more than 600 evaluations in major organizations, giving us a rich background of knowledge and unrivalled insight into current best practice. Membership combines extensive evaluations with peer learning and expert research.

Three elements of membership:

• Peer learning: Rich interaction and sharing with teams from other major organizations

• Expert research: New members-only reports every year and an enormous archive of papers and videos

• Benchmarking evaluations: In-depth analysis of your sites/environment and comparison with other members

Strategic interventions, bespoke projects

Separate from the DWG Member Forum, DWG Consulting Services provides vendor-neutral, unbiased and high-quality advice, and practical hands-on support for digital workplace and intranet programmes. This work is rooted in our decade of providing measurement and research-driven services and our team’s experience of working within large organizations.

Sample consulting projects:

• What does “good” look like? – External insight of industry best practice to inform strategies and plans

• Define vision, strategy & roadmap – Methodology and expertise to set your forward path

• Facilitated workshops – Engage stakeholders across a global organization or within a function

DWG Member Forum DWG Consulting Services

The most valuable thing about DWG is being able to meet your peers. If you work in intranets, it’s normally a closed community… But in this forum, you know you’re going to get honest answers and honest opinions.

We needed a resource. We felt lost. DWG provides resources in one place. It became clear to us that DWG is the one-stop-shop for everything we need.

Two lines of service

Areas of focus

Email: [email protected]: @nancyatdwg Call: +1 973.978.1072

Nancy M. Goebel, Managing Director London

30 City RoadLondon EC1Y 2ABTel: +44 (20) 7722 8726

New York230 West, 41st Street, 15th FloorNew York, NY 10036Tel: +1 (865) 903 0232

Main offices:

How to contact DWG

Mark Mazza Senior Manager, Digital Projects Lloyds Banking Group

Laura Pierce Director, Corporate Intranet ADP

Tel: +44 (20) 7374 8061

http://digitalworkplacegroup.com/consulting-services/

http://digitalworkplacegroup.com/consulting-services/

United Kingdom:

Digital Workplace Group 30 City Road London EC1Y 2AB Tel: +44 (20) 7374 8061

North America:

Digital Workplace Group 230 West 41st Street 15th Floor New York, NY 10036 Tel: +1 (866) 903 0232

[email protected] www.digitalworkplacegroup.com

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