Let’s Get Digital! Understanding the Digital Workplace and Why You Need to Migrate to a Digital Work System
While the figure is going to be different for every business, but one of the major benefits of going digital is the ability to save money on a paperless workplace. A digital workplace means more than going cashless or sending PDFs to clients, however. When you have a workplace that’s made this transition, it means that collaboration, project management, and meetings can be remote and flexible.
Here are four steps to migrating your tools, staff, and products to the cloud.
1. Understanding Your Transition
When you’re looking transition to a digital workplace, you need to make sure everyone on your team has an understanding of why you’re going that route. Some of the most common reasons are the problems of employee turnover or stagnant productivity. When you make the transition, you’re able to employ a wider range of people with a variety of skills that you can deploy as needed.
Your C-level executives are going to need a strong justification of why you’re deciding to go this route. It’s important to outline how you can access the best talent around and maintain higher productivity because of it. They might not understand the benefits of having access to a team that doesn’t work under the same roof.
One of the biggest reasons your executives are going to throw up their hands is over the issues related to the costs of migration. You’ll have a lot of upfront costs related to digitizing your workplace. You’ll need to hire IT staff or get a lot of contractors on board for your transition to integrate your productivity tools.
If you hire new staff, you’ll have to pay to train them and get them on board with your new system. However, if you outsource your IT staff, you’ll be able to get high-quality staff at a lower price.
2. Finding The Perfect Staff
Your workplace transition relies on you having the right team in place. You’ll need people inside your office and people who are part of your remote team who are working together to make the transition work. Migrating your workspace to the digital realm should be exciting.
The staff who knows your workflow the best are the ones who’ve been working with you the longest. Talk to them openly and include them in the transition. Let them know they’re valued and that you care about their input. They’re the ones who are going to make or break this transition, so ensure that you have a place for them once the transition is over.
Your workplace needs to have IT leaders who are going to bring knowledge and skills to implement technical solutions fast. They’ll work with business leaders or program managers who push each change to meet with the vision of the company. They’ll be the buffer between your transition and the C-level executives.
With the help of a connection to human resources, you’ll be able to meet each employee’s individual needs while aiming everyone toward the company’s goals. It’s important the everyone feels valued and motivated while you manage this transition.
Some staff members will hear “digital migration” and imagine their job disappearing. You need to reassure everyone that this isn’t the case for you.
3. Assess Your Current Environment
Your current IT environment will lead your decisionmaking when it comes to what changes you need to make for the transition.
Making an analysis of which applications and systems your environment needs to run takes a lot of time and energy but can shed some light on the next steps. If you see that you’re using a lot of deprecated tools or software that hasn’t been updated in a while, consider changing your system. It could be cheaper than maintaining a variety of old or unsupported operating systems.
You could also be running redundant workflows. If you’re having data entered by one person then having it re-entered by another person in another system, you need integration. Rather than entering that data twice into two different programs, you could enter it once and then paste it into both programs simultaneously.
If your network is running slower than it should, check for any gaps in the flow. If there are systems that get hung on a regular basis, look into whether or not those are essential to the future of your business.
Comb through your content as well. There’s lots of old and redundant content on every kind of system. If you’re going to rebuild your content management system, trim the fat before you move to a new tool.
4. Build a Roadmap
Your team should work together to build some initiatives to address the most important needs that your business has. Look over the technology that you’re using and find ways to streamline your process.
Look at which tools your employees are using and which they prefer. If your staff is interested in working remotely or working from home, find ways to offer this capability.
One of the biggest hurdles is having cross-device technology. You need to have an application that works on Mac and PC. You also need to offer mobile solutions that your staff can work on the go.
Document management platforms should be robust, fast, accessible, and have the ability to share and collaborate with the push of a button. It’s vital that your staff feels connected wherever they are in the world.
Cloud-based solutions allow people to collaborate on digital documents in real time. They can have meetings or work on a file while they’re all on the phone together. If this is the goal that you have, you need to make sure your roadmap gets you there.
Take some time to learn more about how other workplaces are putting their programs together before you make any big leaps.
A Digital Workplace Is Seamless
When you have a digital workplace, the movement between the office and remote workers should be seamless. There should be no loss of information and no break in communication.
If you’re considering moving to a smaller office for your digital workplace, check out our guide to making your move a breeze.