A primer for business leaders on the digital workplace

With so attention now paid to culture, teams, and organisational change, we are surprised by how many discussions still miss the enabling role of social technologies. Yes, the digital workplace is a big topic amongst internal communications managers and technologists, but few business leaders make the direct connection between new ways of working and this emerging ecosystem of platforms and tools. We suspect this is due to relatively low levels of tech confidence amongst the C-Suite and within HR.

Could this be changing? Certainly, as more companies see the need for organisational reform, leaders will begin to ask for the ‘how’ alongside the ‘why’ and ‘what’. Plus, new evidence of the hard benefits of enterprise social platforms will help the business case – Last month, scientist Holger Sievert and Continental AG’s Christina Scholz published research on the cost- and time-saving benefits of social technology. But I would argue that it is the commitment of the big tech vendors in the form of Microsoft Teams and Facebook Workplace that are bringing the focus and enterprise investment into the mainstream of the business. The acceleration should continue: Softbank’s recent $250 million investment in Slack will fan both innovations in the space as well as chatter in the Valley.

Many of our long-time Post*Shift friends are well-versed in Enterprise 2.0, but we also have a growing group of subscribers who are new to the field. So, we offer a list of links those who want a crash-course on the digital workplace and social platforms:

• Empirical evidence that internal social technologies save time and money
• A critical look at Facebook Workplace, by the Real Story Group
• Dear Slack – Get over Microsoft (You have a bigger problem)
• Workplace consumerisation & other collaboration trends
• Two of our posts on digital workplace ecosystems and the non-technical factors that influence adoption