white paper: beyond the intranet - enabling a digital workplace

Beyond The Intranet – Enabling A Digital Workplace

Creating a world-class employee experience that drives employee engagement and customer delight.

Beyond The Intranet- Enabling A Digital Workplace

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In this White Paper we argue that creating a compelling customer experience, regardless of your industry, is required to stay competitive. We further state that focusing first on creating a world class employee experience that drives employee engagement is a necessary precondition for delivering a great customer experience. We finally assert that creating a great employee experience requires delivering the technology solutions to employees necessary to create a true Digital Workplace. The term Digital Workplace has been in use for some time now (our own definition is provided) but we firmly believe that we have arrived at an inflection point where the previous hype is now reality -- where the low cost/high performance solutions and devices first available in the consumer space will now take hold in the

enterprise. Our view is that all employees in the organization play a role in delivering a great customer experience, so taking a broader view of the enabling tools and solutions available to them is necessary. The tools and solutions covered in this paper are focused primarily on what have recently been referred to as “Systems of Engagement1” – which encompass content management, collaboration, and social – and less so on traditional “Systems of Record” technologies like ERP, HR, and finance.

The Digital Workplace: We define the Digital Workplace as an environment where employees are able to quickly and easily share what they know and find what they need with consistent experiences across devices and locations.

1 Systems of Engagement and the Future of Enterprise IT: A Sea Change in Enterprise IT - See more at: http://www.aiim.org/futurehistory#sthash.PA6dfBKk.dpuf

http://www.aiim.org/futurehistory#sthash.PA6dfBKk.dpuf

http://www.aiim.org/futurehistory#sthash.PA6dfBKk.dpuf


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Contents

The Opportunity 5

Impacting the Employee Experience 6

Digital Workplace Defined 7

Employee Experience and the Digital Workplace 8

The “Four Cs” 9

Digital Workplace Components 10

Conclusion 14


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The OpportunityIn a highly competitive world where products and services are becoming more commoditized, organizations have to constantly develop innovative ways to compete for loyal customers and the talent that will keep them loyal. Going beyond mere price and service competitiveness, leading firms are now looking to create more engaging customer experiences as a way

to differentiate and drive greater loyalty. They are looking to do this by providing not just a transaction at an attractive price point, but a complete experience that is aesthetically pleasing, highly personalized, and technology enabled. Starbucks was among the pioneers in the brave new customer experience frontier. They emphasized aesthetics by designing stores to be reminiscent of a European café, and they offered loyalty cards (and now mobile apps) that could be scanned at the counter that not only helped speed check-out but also provided personalized rewards based on purchase history. They also provided Wi-Fi (now free!) to customers so they could hang out and check email or write a paper for school. The actual product they were selling was certainly

not new and consisted of a beverage (coffee) that was readily available to consumers in the home, office or through various other retail outlets; and they charged a significant premium for it. And people flocked to their stores. The use of design and technology (point of sale, loyalty cards/apps, Wi-Fi) to create a compelling customer experience has led to explosive growth over the last 20 years. In 1993 Starbucks had 272 stores; now there are over 17,000 worldwide (a growth rate of over 6,000%)1.

What hasn’t been mentioned thus far is the people aspect to the customer experience – the employees that are on the frontlines ensuring that the experience is not diminished by surly, inattentive, inefficient, uninformed, or disinterested staff members. A superbly technology-enabled customer experience punctuated with lousy service will not win the day. This is certainly true in the retail world as well as any other industry where some level of personal service is part of the total offering and critical to meeting customer/client expectations. Starbucks did not achieve its phenomenal growth by having a lousy employee experience. With turnover rates roughly half the industry average, and placement on Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work for the last 13 years in row, it’s safe to assume a strong correlation between employee experience, customer experience and high performing organizations2.

1 Source: www.starbucks.com/about-us/company-information2 http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/09/21/starbucks-is-hiring-health-plan-good-coffee-but-watch-out-for/

To be successful organizations need to understand that creating a great customer experience first requires focusing on the employee experience.


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Impacting the Employee ExperienceTo be successful organizations need to understand that creating a great customer experience first requires focusing on the employee experience. Organizations need to apply the same principles that Starbucks used (design, personalization, technology enabled) to create a compelling customer experience to deliver an outstanding employee experience. There are many contributing factors to an outstanding employee experience and, just as customer experience can be measured by customer loyalty, employee experience can similarly be measured by employee engagement. The research organization Gallup and consultancy Towers Watson have conducted studies on employee satisfaction for years and have developed models for measuring employee engagement. Gallup defines engaged employees as those who “work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward”3. Gallup argues (rightfully so) that effective leadership and great managers are the primary drivers of employee engagement. Technology solutions will not compensate for deficiencies in this realm.

However, when you look at several of the factors in the employee engagement model it is clear that the effective application of technology solutions can help create happy employees and ultimately happy (and profitable) customers.

3 Source: Gallup 2013 State of the American Workplace

67%Two-thirds of organizations reported that flexible work arrangements had a positive impace on employee engagement and morale.

Source: Workplace Flexibility in the 21st Century (SHRM, 2009)

Figure 1 – Factors that drive employee engagement

“Availability of resources to perform well”

“At work, my opinions seem to count”

“Freedom from obstacles to success at work”

“The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job

is important”

“Ability to meet work challenges effectively”

“I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right”


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Figure 1 provides a subset of factors from the employee engagement research that could be positively impacted by the effective application of technology solutions. These factors combine elements of corporate communication, collaboration, and the tools necessary for employees to get the job done. In our increasingly knowledge-driven and service-focused economy, “getting the job done” more often than not requires having ready access to knowledge stored digitally or in a co-worker’s head. Flexible work arrangements are becoming the norm, whereby employees can work from home based on some agreed upon schedule, or as part of their job description (e.g. outside sales). Studies have shown that providing these types of flexible arrangements can have a positive impact on employee engagement. The key point is to provide flexibility without hampering their ability to do their job effectively. Irrespective of where employees are

located, the appropriate application of technology solutions can improve the employee experience by helping to reduce communication “friction” by easing access to people and information, as well as “noise” by delivering relevant content personalized to the user. Reducing employee frustration created by not being able to quickly and easily find the right information is a key way in which technology can help drive improved employee engagement.

Digital Workplace DefinedWe are using the term Digital Workplace to describe the set of capabilities – a desired end-state if you will – an employee has available to them that will help drive employee engagement and allow them to be informed, knowledgeable, and more responsive to customers, be they internal or external.

We define the Digital Workplace as an environment where employees are able to quickly and easily share what they know and find what they need with consistent experiences across devices and locations. The environment described here has both physical and virtual elements. The physical aspects include mobile devices and kiosks and potentially other to-be invented delivery mechanisms. The virtual elements are delivered via software applications running on these devices. The types of solutions one may find in this environment would be content management, collaboration, social, and enterprise search integrated with (system of record) applications such as HR, CRM, and finance/accounting. In the simplest terms, the Digital

We define the Digital Workplace as an environment where employees are able to quickly and easily share what they know and find what they need with consistent experiences across devices and locales.


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Workplace is a place where employee engagement and happiness is found by delivering the right information, to the right person, at the right time. This is not just a nice-to-have but necessary in order to meet continually escalating customer expectations. These rising expectations are requiring companies to be more agile and innovative. The free flow of relevant information (i.e. reducing friction) has a direct impact on company agility – a sort of rapid company-wide “sense and respond” capability that leads to service improvements, ideas for new offerings, etc. From the employee perspective they feel like the tools and information available to them are smart enough to understand who they are, what they do, where they are, and what they need.

It is important to note the technology has helped create the problem of information overload, so a more thoughtful approach is the answer, not simply more technology. It’s easy to image a scenario whereby all the latest cool tools are dropped on the employees’ desktop that connects them to all their colleagues as well a vast storehouse of documents and other content. The potential downside to this is a situation where the employee is subjected to a constant deluge of interruptions and endless time spent searching for documents. Studies have shown that on average a worker loses over 2 hours of productivity per day due to distractions and interruptions. To address this workers need to be in control the information flow and the interactions with their colleagues, so that what is presented to them on daily basis is relevant to their job, their current project, and the customers they serve. The more effective enterprise search is, for example, the less reliance employees will have on their colleagues to answer questions or locate relevant content. Additionally, by offering presence awareness capabilities where employees can proactively notify others of their current status, location, and availability they are better able to control and organize their time to help minimize interruptions and focus on the task at hand.

Employee Experience and the Digital WorkplaceSo what elements of employee engagement can the Digital Workplace realistically impact? First let’s look at the essential elements of the Digital Workplace that we refer to as the “Four C’s”: Content, Collaboration, Communication and Context.

• Content – this deals with where your organization’s content is stored, in what form, how “findable” is it, and how “shareable.”

• Collaboration – refers to the ease with which people (individuals or teams) can connect with one another to quickly resolve issues, get questions answered and develop new ideas.

“Remote workers log an average of four more hours per week than their on-site counterparts… these workers are slightly more engaged (32%) than employees who work on-site (28%).”Gallup 2013 State of the American Workplace

2.1 hoursAverage number of hours of lost productivity per day due to distractions and interruptions.

Source: Basex Research


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• Communication – addresses the degree to which robust communication capabilities exist that can reach all employees in a variety of formats and channels based on the purpose and nature of the communication (i.e. instant message, email, newsfeed, phone call).

• Context – this refers to the degree to which the overall experience is personalized and relevant to each employee – i.e. right information, right time, delivered to the right person.

You can think of the Four C’s as representing the starting point for evaluating the maturity of your organization along the path to the true Digital Workplace. This evaluation should not be done in the abstract but tied closely to the needs and aspirations of your key stakeholder groups: customers and employees. By understanding the customer experience first you establish the proper context for the employee experience as the two are obviously intertwined. Your definition of the customer experience, supported by a core set of principles, will help establish the foundational principles for the employee experience. A simple example of a customer experience principle in practice might be: “any customer inquiry to a call center is resolved with a single interaction” – the old “one and done.” So you want to make certain these front line folks have at their disposal the knowledge necessary to make this happen. A good employee experience involves having the right information, readily available to respond to the customer’s inquiry on the spot. In this scenario the customer is happy because he/she gets their issue resolved in a timely manner.

The “Four Cs”

Content

Collaboration

Communication

Context


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The employee feels good about providing great service. This ties directly to employee engagement metrics referenced earlier such as: Availability of resources to perform well,” and “Freedom from obstacles to success at work.” In addition, this reflects positively on the company, ultimately impacting customer loyalty and the company’s bottom line.

The point of this is not that every organization can or should operate like a high volume call center. What’s important is to first develop a set of principles that define the customer experience that will in turn drive the desired behaviors and results. It is our contention that moving towards a true Digital Workplace will help enable the desired employee behaviors, and focusing on the “Four C’s” will help organizations accelerate that process. Recent research by the McKinsey Global Institute on how the typical employee allocates their time provides a good baseline for what behaviors and activities could be impacted by the Digital Workplace. According to their research only 39% of a knowledge worker’s day is focused on their “role-specific” tasks. The remaining 61% is spent on: reading and responding to emails (28%); searching and gathering information (19%); and communicating and collaborating internally (14%). What organizations should strive for -- and what the Digital Workplace needs to enable -- is maximizing the time spent on roll-based tasks, and minimizing all the rest (e.g. emails, searching for documents). By focusing on the reallocation of employees’ time, organizations can provide a clear guidepost as to what behaviors are desirable (don’t use email for every conceivable communication) and outcomes that focus on what’s in it for employees (allowing more time to focus on your work).

Digital Workplace Components The primary technical and functional components of the Digital Workplace are outlined in the graphic below. These represent the core capabilities that employees must have in order to realize the true vision of the Digital Workplace – the right information, delivered to the right person at the right time. You will note that we use the “Four C’s” to categorize each of the functional areas to ensure that there is alignment with these critical elements and the capabilities you are delivering to your users. It is important to note the placement of customer experience and employee experience and that the combination of capabilities must be understood in context of the needs, desires, and expectations of these stakeholder groups. In addition, Mobile and Process/Workflow are critical in addressing the issues of accessing information wherever you are, but also being able to take action. To realize measureable improvements in productivity and employee engagement the notion of “access” and “action” must be addressed by enabling mobile and workflow whenever appropriate. It’s not


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enough that employees can access information from their home, office, or coffee shop but they also need to be able to take some sort of meaningful action that resolves and issue or closes out a task.

A Note about Social CollaborationYou should also note that “Social” is not listed separately but is included under both collaboration and communication. Although there has been much discussion -- some would argue over-blown hype -- concerning social applications and the concept of the social enterprise, we like to think of it as simply another form of communication that can help accelerate the transfer of knowledge throughout the organization. By viewing social as another form of communication and not something separate and apart from the rest of your Digital Workplace strategy, organizations are then more likely to take a more integrated approach that will translate into a superior employee experience. The trick is understanding the combination of capabilities that will best fit an organization’s specific needs, not searching for the new “silver bullet” that will unleash a torrent of previously untapped knowledge. The point is not to minimize social as an essential tool in the toolbox, it is to understand that it is in fact one tool available to organizations and should be applied in the proper context.

Under Content you have the tools and capabilities that help to store, manage, retrieve, and share content in either structured form (data) and unstructured (documents). The ultimate objective here is to make certain the content is “findable”, measured by how quickly a user can find relevant content, and “shareable”, which addresses how easily a user can share the content internally with a colleague or externally with a customer.

The Collaboration toolset involves connecting people to get answers and enabling sharing of knowledge. The two critical elements to keep in mind with collaboration is the extent to which one can quickly and easily connect real-time with a colleague, and the ability to capture that exchange


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for reuse across the organization. A simple example of this would be two colleagues exchanging Instant Messages regarding a customer issue, employee 1 one drops into the IM a link to a document that has the right information to address the issue, and employee 2 shares the information with the customer that solves the problem. Employee 2, very pleased that the issue was resolved in a timely manner, posts a quick message on her personal newsfeed that provides a brief synopsis of the issue and link to the helpful document. Colleagues that subscribe to her newsfeed will see the update immediately. In addition, her post will be included in Search results for others in the future that may run into the same issue.

Enabling effective Communication across the organization is essential to meeting organization-wide goals for reinforcing the culture and supporting change management initiatives. The traditional corporate intranet has historically been where most of the corporate communications took place, with the focus on keeping employees informed of the latest developments. This typically involved one-way communication, without employee feedback and involvement. With the inclusion of social tools the notion of an ongoing dialog is now a possibility. In addition, with capabilities to conduct polls across the employee base, organizations can gather both qualitative (blog post comments) as well as quantitative (poll responses) data. With the advent of video as a cost effective and high impact means of communication, organizations have more tools in the toolbox to reinforce values, culture, and execute on initiatives that involve change management. As the first mass communication tool available to employees, email still holds a special place as the go-to means of communication, either one-to-one or one-to-many, in most organizations. The habits and behaviors that drive the heavy use of email are not easily changed, and in fact, dramatically changing those behaviors may not be a priority for most organizations. However, there are two areas that organizations should consider with respect to email use that will help improve overall communication and information flow. The first would be to ban attachments, the other would be to eliminate company-wide communications via email and use corporate blogs or video messages. Reinforcing simple practices such as employees using links instead of attachments, and CEOs doing blog posts rather than all-employee emails can start to change behaviors.

The final category, Context, presents a bit of a challenge when looking at tools and capabilities as there is no real comprehensive “context tool” as such. Let’s start with the idea that information that would be useful to the organization as a whole is either captured as content stored somewhere in the organization or within a colleague’s brain. The issue of context deals directly with relevancy - how can I find the right document or the right person with the right answer. Relevancy impacts responsiveness. Understanding context starts with answering questions like: who is the end


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user (skills, experience, competencies)?; what are their responsibilities?; what customers do they serve?; what are the customers’ expectations?; what are their information needs?; what process do they follow? One of the best tests of whether or not the context is understood is when the answer to a question is “it depends”. So, for example, what’s the best way to get to Times Square? Well, it depends. Where are you now? How much budget do you have? Are you afraid of flying? When do you want to leave? So, in this discussion, context is useful in identifying specific point solutions that can help to address the “it depends” issue.

So when the question arises - “Which presentation in the document library is appropriate for my meeting?” capabilities like tagging and the application of metadata help to identify which PowerPoint presentation is most relevant given the meeting objective and audience. Additionally, the availability of in-depth personal profile data can help to identify the right person to bring along to the meeting or to consult with prior to the meeting. Finally, context is important at the organizational level to help understand what tools and capabilities are necessary and appropriate for specific employee audiences. What tools and capabilities are appropriate for sales? It depends. What tools are appropriate for human resources? It depends. Answering the questions above is a good start.

Shifting to the Digital WorkplaceThe move to the Digital Workplace requires first taking an outside-in approach. It starts with your customers/clients/constituents and requires that you define the overall experience that you are looking to create in a clear, concise, and unambiguous way. Let’s look briefly to the definition of customer experience so we know how best to proceed from here. According to our good friends at Wikipedia, customer experience is defined as: “the sum of all experiences [emphasis added] a customer has with a supplier of goods and/or services, over the duration of their relationship with that supplier. From awareness, discovery, attraction, interaction, purchase, use, cultivation and advocacy”4.

The key point (and why it’s emphasized) is “the sum of all experiences”, which implies that the customer could have multiple touch points across an organization, from the initial sales call through to invoicing/billing. So basically every employee can have an impact on the customer experience, either directly or indirectly, depending on their role. So, wouldn’t it be prudent to identify what exactly that experience should be, and what employee behaviors you are trying to encourage in order to deliver the desired experience?

4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_experience

Customer experience is defined as: “the sum of all experiences a customer has with a supplier of goods and/or services, over the duration of their relationship with that supplier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_experience


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ConclusionBelow is a process we have identified that draws heavily from our own experience implementing custom collaboration and content management solutions on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, as well as principles found in design thinking and user centered design. One of the first principles that drives this process, is that the conversation should always start with customers and employees, not features and functions. When you start with features and functions you never properly establish context and therefore do not define the problem to be solved. For example, the appropriate questions to ask are not “should we implement social,” it’s more “how might social impact our ability to be more responsive to customers?” It’s all about asking the right questions.

5 Steps to the Digital Workplace

1. Clarify the Context – Identify your customer experience, as this is the starting point for establishing the proper context for everything else that follows. Keep in mind that this is not intended to be a long, drawn-out exercise but should be used to extract the key principles that can be clearly communicated and understood (and followed!).

2. Focus on Users – Understand roles, functions, behaviors, impediments by asking the right questions and observing actual behaviors. Determine information needs and how they differ throughout a particular process – address both “knowing” and “doing.”

3. Spec Out a Game Plan – Develop a roadmap that lays out the implementation plan that describes the overall approach and budgetary requirements. This will serve as the business case as well as the game plan that can be used to gain executive buy-in for funding of the project. This should also include change management components and communication strategy.

4. Experiment/Measure/Learn – Your roadmap will outline your plan for pilot testing your ideas, measuring response/behaviors, and the process for applying what you learn. At this stage you are actively managing your pilot(s), reporting findings back to stakeholders, and refining your roadmap.

5. Rollout and Support – Once you have incorporated employee feedback and made refinements you are ready to launch companywide. Since the scale of this effort will differ dramatically from the pilot program you need to develop a rollout and communications plan and support model that provides adequate user support during the critical initial launch period. It also important to

…the conversation should always start with customers and users, not features and functions.


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implement a support model that includes both subject matter as well as technical resources and incorporates change management best practices.

So this may seem like a lot of work and you may be thinking, “is it really worth it?” We believe that a well thought out game plan and the application of sound practices related to user centered design, communication, and change management can significantly diminish the challenges associated with realizing the Digital Workplace. As to whether or not it’s worth it – we believe the question is really “can you afford not to?” There are two forces at work that are driving the need for the Digital Workplace – rising expectations and intense competition. These forces are in play in both the “war for talent” and “battle for the customer.” Employees have much higher expectations in terms of overall work environment driven in part by their experience as consumers – and actively engaged employees are more productive and innovative rising customer expectations are nothing new and it’s easy to imagine the acceleration of demands for easier, faster, better and cheaper across all industries will continue in the future. The question that every executive needs to ask is: are we prepared for this?


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Discover the Path to the Digital Workplace with Portal Solutions

We revolutionize the way employees collaborate by delivering digital workplace solutions for the enterprise on Microsoft SharePoint and Office 365 platforms. These solutions allow employees to easily share what they know and find what they need anywhere, anytime, on any device. We focus on what drives user adoption to create solutions people will actually use.

Portal Solutions’ strategy and planning consultants understand the challenges involved and the approach needed to succeed. From social to search to collaboration, our suite of advisory services provide the guidance your organization needs to make informed decisions to get the Digital Workplace right.

With a highly experienced branding, design and user experience team, our suite of User Experience Services adapts industry-standard best practices to the needs of your implementation. We follow a user-centered design methodology and deliver services that include branding, creative design and UI implementation.

Whether you are starting a completely new collaboration platform, transitioning from a previous solution, or seeking to develop a more robust Digital Workplace solution, our collaboration experts will work with your organization to make it happen quickly and efficiently, delivering business value and driving user adoption. Our breadth of skills and experience are available to help you execute on a proof of concept or pilot, or full lifecycle development. Design and implementation services include systems integration, content migration and single sign-on solutions.

Our unique staffing model, specifically designed SharePoint and Office 365, combines the best elements of traditional managed services and staff augmentation. With an emphasis on user support as well as technical support, we provide the breadth of SharePoint expertise necessary to make sure users are engaged and productive.

To learn more, visit www.portalsolutions.net.

http://www.portalsolutions.net