There’s a lot of buzz and confusion around the term “digital workplace.” Many businesses make the words digital workplace a synonym for their collaboration tools, intranet software, and various network solutions.

A Digital Workplace in 2020 is not just your tools.

Your tools are essential, but they’re a shortsighted view of what a digital workplace can be. Leaders need to look beyond the past and into the future about how a digital workplace might really transform the entire ecosystem of work.

Where to look to for the digital workplace.

We interviewed business leaders around the world to see what they had to say about what a digital workplace is and what are the problems it will solve in 2020. We asked, “How will a digital workplace help you at work in 2020?” Here are their most common responses.

1. Kill tab switching.

“I think the biggest challenge of the digital workplace is that we all have like 20 applications and 100 tabs open at once, with Slack, email, and text notifications popping in overtop of it all. In 2020, I’ll be looking at any applications or systems that will help me avoid that kind of context switching so I can be more productive,” said Yaniv Masjedi, CMO at Nextiva.

Context switching is a real problem that most people do not think about. It is the new age equivalent of people dropping by your desk to discuss ‘work,’ ‘not work,’ and everything in between. It is affecting productivity in ways we don’t realize.

Data silos are the main reasons for tab switching. A classic example is the use of emails for ‘official’ internal communications and chats for all other communication. Despite some apparent differences, there aren’t standard rules in place for when to use each form. Thus, when it comes time to find the details of communication, you now have to search at least two places to find what you need.

API integrations can fetch data from different apps and significantly reduce tab switching. However, it does not eliminate it. To have a higher impact on eliminating tab switching, transition your operations to multi-functional platforms from separate disparate tools.

2. Collaboration tools should work in tandem with projects.

“The capabilities I want from a digital workplace are the following. First, I need a capable communication platform, which lets me send texts and make audio and video calls, as well as share my screen. Next, I need a feature that lets me manage my projects better. We built a tool that aims to blend these two together, and I think it’s doing a good job so far,” says Dmytro Okunyev, Founder at Chanty.

Many organizations are trying to build their own tools to bring their communication into their projects. Each project needs high-end analytics and reporting capabilities toessential get control and insights over all the activities running within.

The next challenge is to take these insights into actions, to manage work, people, and their collaboration in one go. Many enterprises build their own tools for the purposes of customizability and data security. They cost a fortune but get the job done efficiently.

However, there are some collaborative project management tools that SMBs and mid-markets could use to get the job done. They can still catch up with their enterprise giants if they realize this problem and start acting upon it.

3. Improved knowledge management.

“We can also expect enterprises to pay greater attention to their employees’ competences and knowledge augmentation. In this context, digital workplaces could get expanded with previously unavailable knowledge management features. I am looking forward to welcoming software solutions capable of sorting out batches of business content, and capturing valuable knowledge that could be further automatically relocated to employees’ competence centers, as well as shared across teams and communities,” says Alex Paretski, Knowledge Manager at Itransition Group.

In today’s dynamic work environment, it is important to document and manage information that needs to be on common grounds for all-round access. Getting new employees up to speed is more comfortable when they can find the resources by themselves and fill their knowledge gaps.

It also lightens the load on all teams when users can search for information right at their fingertips with ease — it merely gives a better experience for employees. With powerful search tools that can understand queries based on the context, a digital workplace should have knowledge management as a priority for every organization.

4. Increased productivity with remote work.

“As more people work from non-traditional locations (even within a traditional office), it’s critical for employees to provide tools to enable productivity while being mobile. The Capital One 2019 Work Environment Survey found that 61 percent of professionals expect their next employer to offer flexible hours, and 54 percent expect the ability to work remotely. To meet those expectations, business leaders and employees must make smart technology choices that allow for collaboration and seamless work/life integration,” says Christian Teismann, Senior VP & General Manager at Lenovo.

Remote work has been on the rise over the last decade. It allows employees to work at their own time and place. Studies have shown that the performance of employees increases when they work remotely. But how to make remote work a reality that works for both the organization and employees?

The best way forward is to give employees the right digital tools to stay connected to work. It has to be the right mix of providing maximum functionality and flexibility along with data security. To keep a tab on everything, it is also necessary to reduce the number of apps used by employees to get more visibility.

5. Employee-centric approach while adapting to new technology.

While software applications are expected to become more intelligent, employees will need to be empowered to leverage these technologies to become more effective and productive.

Until now, the solution to any work problem is looking for digital tools. However, the biggest mistake is assuming that buying and implementing a tool will solve the problem automatically. Make sure that employees adapt to a new work culture with those new tools. Only then will you see a significant change in ROI. After all, employees are human beings with habits that are hard to change.

How to approach a digital workplace?

Digital workplace initiatives are bringing in a lot of benefits to businesses of all sizes. Even if the term ‘digital workplace’ is loosely defined, it is necessary for leaders to try and understand why people are talking about it.

The ideal approach to your digital workplace should be to identify the current needs of your business, get digital tools if required, and implement them in the system through people. The vision for a digital workplace is an ongoing wave. Better to ride it than be late to the party.

Try Out Productivity Tools We Are Using

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Employee productivity is the very backbone of every company.  Improving it directly affects the company’s success. It is vital for a company to stay alive and thrive.

Business leaders need to realize that it is not about hiring productive employees. It is about creating a productive work environment for the employees. Here are four foolproof ways to improve productivity in the workplace:

1. Business process management

Business process management (BPM) focuses on streamlining and optimizing underlying business processes in order to increase overall efficiency. It involves improving business processes by analysing how they work in different situations, making improvements to them, and then monitoring the modified processes to ensure continued optimization.

BPM is an integral part of digital transformation. It helps improve order, insight, and efficiency in the workflows of any given business process. The main goal of implementing BPM is to take control of the ad hoc workflows and optimize them to create more streamlined and interconnected business processes.

While the exact steps can vary from organization to organization, generally the BPM lifecycle includes:

• Designing the ideal business process and recognizing areas of improvements
• Analyzing how the business process operates in different scenarios
• Implementing improvement solutions
• Monitoring the improvements to see how the business process is performing
• Continually optimizing the business process

2. Automation

Most organizations have complex business processes and workflows that consist of numerous disjointed applications. As your organization grows and new technologies are introduced, the complexity of business processes increases with it. There are many parts of the business processes that are repetitive. Automating them can help save time which the employees can then use to perform their core responsibilities.

For instance, most organizations use numerous SaaS applications and handle large volumes of data. With that, the room for manual human errors also becomes bigger. Human errors can be introduced in any part of the business process–the cost of rectification for which can be incredibly high.

Automating manual data entry tasks helps avoid manual errors and it also increases productivity. Employees get more time to focus on complex problem-solving tasks when they don’t have to perform repetitive tasks that can easily be managed by machines.

Similarly, depending on how exactly the files are shared and saved in your company, team members may have to wait for approval from higher-ups before they can start their work. Waiting for approval can lead to delays.

Approvals can be as easy as clicking a button if you automate them using the right tools.

3. Better inclusiveness

While over 90% of business leaders think an engagement strategy can improve their business success, only 25% of them have a strategy for it. Workplaces that truly focus on the employee experience by including everyone are able to shape corporate culture in a positive way. This process will, in turn, improves overall productivity.

In fact, employees who feel their voice is heard within the organization are 4.6 times more likely to perform their best work. While feedback and recognition are important for employees, they are not enough. Today’s employees expect communication to be a two-way street. Make sure employees are able to voice their opinions. This is the largest push you can give for inclusiveness and equality in the workplace.

Companies need to incorporate a broader range of perspectives into their decision making process and strategy. After all, inviting more people to the table and making sure everyone is included is a win-win situation for everyone.

4. A digital workplace

A digital workplace gives employees access to a complete set of digital tools that they can use from wherever they are to accomplish their everyday work responsibilities. Every organization uses over 16 SaaS applications on average. If these applications aren’t integrated well, then instead of saving time of the employees, they end up doing the exact opposite.

With a digital workplace, employees get a unified platform where they can access all the business applications in one go. They also get access to all the business processes, workflows and data that they need to manage their work.

The benefits of implementing a digital workplace include:

• Higher productivity and employee engagement
• Improved collaboration
• Better efficiency even when employees are working from different physical locations
• Streamlined business workflows

It is only when all the different elements of the workplace ecosystem are closely integrated that employees can be truly productive and a digital workplace is possible.

Identify gaps and bottlenecks to improve productivity:

Before you take any steps, carefully analyse the current work environment to get an accurate idea of the gaps and bottlenecks in your existing business processes. Internal feedback from employees is also important. Feedback helps you to understand what is missing in order to create a more productive workplace that helps employees streamline their everyday work responsibilities and save time.

The post 4 Ways You Can Make Your Workplace an Engine of Productivity appeared first on ReadWrite.

Growing and maturing a company are two different operations, yet they share a common goal: to stay in business for the long run. As the number of new companies multiplies all over the globe, competition grows fierce. Surviving the digital age in a sea of competitors requires thoughtful preparedness and agility. What we want to do is start building a workplace for the next 100 years.

SAP’s recent study revealed that 84 percent of CEOs believe the digital transformation of their workplace is critical to their survival in the next five years. Only three percent have completed any company-wide transformation efforts. This  three percent of dedicated leaders are leaps and bounds ahead of their rivals:

• 85 percent of leaders say the transformation has increased market share
• 70 percent say they are already seeing higher customer satisfaction
• 64 percent of employees at leading companies feel more engaged
• 80 percent of leaders say the transformation has increased profitability
• Forming a business framework to outlast this century takes commitment and follow-through to fuse the right mix of software applications, human talent, and robots successfully.

Humans and robots: a combined workforce.

The data age poses profitable opportunities for businesses. IDC’s Data Age 2025 report commented: “Data is helping us reach new markets, serve existing customers better, streamline operations, and monetize raw and analyzed data.”

How can data make such a profound impact? Robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), and other machines work alongside humans to process multitudes of data and leverage its advantages.  

Machines process data at infinitely higher speeds than humans.

Machines take on tedious tasks most employees don’t enjoy, at reduced risk and cost. Quicker, efficient data processing enables higher-quality products and top notch customer service that keep consumers coming back for more. A senior Japanese executive commented in a 2018 Deloitte survey, “Robotics is not about cost reduction. It’s about maintaining the business.”  

On the flip side, robots require people to feed them the right data and ensure useful output is delivered.

Creative tasks, like planning a website redesign or a new product release, requires human critical thinking skills. Bots are process-dependent, so individuals are needed to manage all other work scenarios. Combining people skills and robotic intelligence can cover all aspects of work most efficiently.

A unified digital workplace for humans and machines.

How can companies manage a seamless flow of data to synchronize the work performed by humans and robots? Employees need one efficient tool and not a pile of fragmented, inflexible applications. This single tool is required in order to manage whatever kind of work that comes their way, both repetitive tasks they can hand off to robots and creative projects requiring a human touch.

A digital workplace is a central platform where automated processes, one-time projects, cases, and collaboration function in harmony. All types of work are performed and tracked in the same application, ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks, including customers’ needs.

Ninety-five percent of global consumers say customer service is a significant factor that determines brand loyalty. So, efficiently managing internal operations and customer needs must be a top priority to sustain a solid customer base and long business life.

Many solutions are inflexible and don’t directly address business problems.

Other programs take too much effort to learn, so employees resort to their own tools, taking security and compliance protocol for granted. Employees need a user-friendly digital workplace where data is shared and integrated.

Workflow for both robots and humans can be easily modified. Does this mean only big-budget enterprises will be able to afford a digital workplace to survive the data age? Not necessarily.

Citizen developers are presenting a new precedence.

The astounding shortage of computer science professionals in the US demonstrates the need for enterprises to become less reliant upon IT professionals to persist in digital transformation. SMBs often have a limited IT budget and were previously unable to utilize high-tech tools to improve operations. Building a tech-savvy business for the future, no matter the size requires a new approach to business solutions.

No-code development platforms are beginning to take the place of expensive IT teams and may help and may help build a business for 100 years.

These no-code companies offer smaller businesses the opportunity to reap technology’s benefits. In a digital workplace, any business user can automate a repetitive process, build a project board, or construct a case workflow through a drag-and-drop interface without writing any code.

In the past, IT professionals had to build every application from the ground up, a lengthy process. Now, in only a matter of days, users can create custom applications covering a wide range of both internal and external operations.

This potential can boost productivity by 90 percent and increase customer satisfaction by 70 percent. Embracing citizen development in a digital workplace is key to building essential, custom solutions for both humans and machines to excel.

Eye on the future

The only thing constant is change, especially in the business environment. But a majority of businesses aren’t adapting successfully. Only one in five companies can be marked as digital leaders—agile, tech-forward companies who are using technology disruption for explosive growth.

While businesses stuck in email and spreadsheets lag behind, leaders who embrace the digital age race ahead. Employing a combined workforce of humans and machines in a digital workplace will put your company on a track that stretches into the next century.

The post Building a Workplace for the Next 100 Years appeared first on ReadWrite.

The phrases “business process management” and “workflow automation” immediately bring to mind disciplines utilized in for-profit businesses. However, orchestrating non-profit organizations also requires fund management, administration, hiring, and other procedures similar to for-profit companies.

When core operational processes run efficiently for non-profit institutions, more productive services can be rendered, holistically improving individual lives and our world as a whole. Automated workflows escalate efficiency, enabling non-profits to pursue their mission with focused intensity.

Here are six incredible organizations that have turned to workflow management to help them do even more good.

Project Syncere

In southern Chicago, ten team members teach the importance of math and science to youth in underserved communities through over twenty engineering programs. Project involvement has helped students achieve higher grades and also piqued their interest in STEM fields.

Director Adrianne Wheeler said that Project Syncere earlier used word of mouth, sticky notes, and other paper methods to plan and manage projects, resulting in frequent miscommunication and disorganization.

After switching to automated workflows, program planning became much smoother thanks to the centralized communication hub and task reminders. Soon, staff members began to take ownership of internal processes by offering suggestions for additional improvement.

YMCA of Metro Chicago

Over a thousand employees at The YMCA Metro Chicago serve about 100,000 members and half a million locals by promoting youth development, healthy living, and social responsibility. Renting and leasing their numerous facilities for various local events was a tedious, time-consuming process.

They tried several software solutions, but expenses ran high, and problems such as poor printing capabilities and complex information retrieval still slowed operations. When the software was integrated with automated workflows, multiple issues were resolved: pertinent information became instantly available over the cloud-based system, receipt/contract printing needs were met, and senior leaders could directly make approvals while out of office and without scrolling through emails.

Vibrant Emotional Health

Helping Americans achieve emotional wellness with dignity and respect, Vibrant Health runs the National Suicide Prevention Hotline and serves local residents out of their main office in New York City. In the past, payment requests and approvals were completed manually and walked from desk to desk for signatures.

The implementation of DocuSign only cut down on paper use since form data could not include calculations or be modified by colleagues. When payment processes were moved to automated workflows, processing time decreased by more than 50 percent and human error was significantly reduced.

Thresholds of approval were created by each department to ensure an accurate chain of communication. IT costs stayed within budget and users were promptly assisted by the system’s customer support service.

World Vision

Since 1950, World Vision has been providing relief and development aid to overcome poverty and injustice around the world. Multimedia coverage of work efforts is vital to raising awareness and keeping contact with sponsors, but gathering content from all over the globe through email lead to lost attachments, misplaced data, and chaos.

World Vision implemented workflows to improve communication between the field and home office. The applications enabled users to locate the nearest communication expert easily, evaluate their credentials and cost, and initiate approval requests for media coverage. Efficiency skyrocketed as stories from the field could be seamlessly requested, approved, and delivered through a centralized system.

Wayne Metropolitan

Dedicated to diminishing poverty in greater Detroit, Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency provides services, programs, and resources to low-income families, cultivating hope for a brighter future. Tracking relocation of personnel and resources across numerous sites was cumbersome, and approving hires took about five days until they began using cloud-based automated workflows.

Without hiring IT experts, management was able to customize workflows to meet their data processing needs intuitively, and teamwork between departments amplified. New hire approval was reduced to one to two days, allowing workers to meet community needs even sooner.

NQ Dry Tropics

In Northeastern Australia, NQ Dry Tropics works with communities, industries, and the government to sustainably manage natural land and water resources. A workflow system easily integrable with Google Apps was needed to track expense request and approvals.

The team chose a cloud-based, user-friendly program in order to analyze the flow of funds and plan for the future strategically. After a successful start, NQ Dry Tropics expanded workflow use to other internal processes. As the organization grows, workflows will naturally scale with the organization, remaining straightforward and efficient.

Process Faster, Impact More

Wise resource management is crucial for non-profit organizations and low-cost automated workflow systems enable non-profits to cut down on processing time without breaking the bank. Consolidating the nuts and bolts of a nonprofit’s procedures into automated workflows promotes unification of team members through streamlined communication channels.

Average American workers spend eight hours out of a forty-hour workweek just searching for internal documents. Staff members in mission-driven organizations have no desire to lose that much time while urgent human needs are waiting to be met. Automating processes is a win-win, conserving resources so more energy can be contributed to reaching the masses, whether local or global.

The post How Workflow Automation Enables Non-Profits to Do More appeared first on ReadWrite.