The digital workplace is increasingly becoming common practice in Swiss companies. But what exactly does it look like and what needs to be considered on the way to the New World of Work? Pascal Grossniklaus, CEO at ahead and partner at isolutions, spoke to Persorama about the introduction and the associated obstacles and benefits of the digital workplace.
Three factors play a central role: the physical space in which employees work in different roles, the technology (hardware and software) and the culture - in other words, how people work and communicate with each other.
It is primarily a question of culture, because the digital transformation is not an uncontrollable force of nature, but a human-driven process of change. In other words, we can decide where the journey takes us. It is a process that affects the entire organization.
We find that most requests from customers come via the technology, i.e. the IT department has a budget for a project, for example to introduce a social collaboration tool such as Microsoft Teams, and approaches us with a list of requirements. Those involved quickly realize that the technical challenges can be overcome. However, implementing a new way of working in a company is also an emotional and cultural issue, because previous working methods and processes change significantly.
It can be as simple as introducing shared file storage in the cloud. The culture then changes from "push" to "pull" - every employee is required to be active on this platform themselves and regularly collect the information intended for them; the exchange by email or telephone is significantly reduced. In general, New Work requires more transparency, participation and flexibility. This new openness is unfamiliar and not pleasant for every employee. Targeted internal communication and training measures are therefore needed to promote a new culture of working. And managers in particular need to exemplify the new culture. We suggest to our customers that they manage a document filing system based on the principle of public access. Until now, it has been more common for documents to be stored under lock and key. But social collaboration cannot function according to the principle of secrecy.
You can clearly define what is and must be confidential - for example, personnel and customer data, strategic knowledge, financial data or patents. In our experience, only around ten percent of the data in a company really needs to be confidential. The rest can be open within defined teams or areas. Of course, this also requires trust in the employees.
For example, by being visible in internal media or on social media channels with their own comments and contributions on leadership topics. Then the tool will also be taken seriously. Or a CEO no longer has to send e-mails with attachments, but could go to Microsoft Teams or Slack and write a chat message with a link for further information. Leadership in New Work means encouraging and exemplifying a growth mindset in the company.
Yes, this cannot come from any committee without decision-making authority, but must come from the management. Ideally, managers are open and willing to implement the necessary changes and make a personal commitment. It is therefore important not only to send out impulses to employees, but also to exemplify the new way of working themselves. By setting an example, managers shape the culture in the company.
I don't think so. Top-down always has a slightly negative connotation. But it is important that overarching and trend-setting decisions come from the management. Even with self-organized teams, it must be clear which direction to take. Employees need guidance so that they know what they are working for. And management is still responsible for the entire organization. New Work does not mean that everyone can do what they want, but rather that there is a clear structure and defined tasks or roles.
There is no general recipe. It always depends on the size and digital maturity of a company. There are companies that switch to agile working with 300 people from one day to the next. For others, such a process takes months. Others have a hybrid set-up - i.e. certain areas work in a classic hierarchical way and have agile teams for certain projects. In general, we recommend not lingering too long in the concept phase and specifying everything down to the last detail. It makes sense to first define values and goals and consider how these can be achieved. And then to start experimenting in order to try things out step by step, learn and then continuously improve.
Definitely. Because that is the only way for companies to develop today. None of us is an expert on what is to come. So we need an awareness of openness in companies: We learn something new together. And a new culture can only emerge in real life. You can't just impose something like this. It requires courage and a willingness to take risks as well as a new culture of error - in other words, an environment in which making mistakes is not a drama, but an opportunity to learn from them and do better next time. That way, everyone becomes a pioneer.
Experimenting also means that none of us knows 100% how it will work and what the best solution is. This is associated with uncertainty. In my experience, enduring uncertainty is one of the biggest hurdles of transformation. After all, there have hardly been any changes in companies on the scale of the digital transformation in recent years.
There are CEOs who address their employees in a video at the start of such fundamental changes with the message: "We are learning together" - in other words, they explain to them that the company is in a phase of change and therefore not everything is always running smoothly. And then appeal to everyone to get involved in this process and support each other so that it goes well. It is important for this kind of communication to be authentic. Our general impression is that internal communication is still not taken seriously enough. Yet it can provide a great deal of support for culture building in companies with offline and online media. At Isolutions, we use "ahead" as a social intranet as an internal information channel and can thus live our work culture together and also make it visible.
We often see that new software or professional collaboration tools are to be introduced in the company and then an IT project is quickly launched. The HR professionals then organize the employee training as a kind of passenger in the back seat and often don't really feel responsible. It should actually be the other way around.
Before such a change is launched, a mixed committee of managers should be formed in companies to jointly develop a vision for the company before technology and measures are defined. And in my view, HR has a leadership role to play in creating an attractive environment for talent by changing the working environment to attract good new employees. The younger generation wants to work differently!
Achieving greater efficiency in decision-making on complex issues is a sensible goal that generally leads to better results. But if the primary goal of New Work is to save costs with new tools, freedom or more agile teams, our experience has shown that this works rather poorly. And we know that: When such demands for "cost reduction" come in, management has usually not yet understood what New Work and digital transformation essentially mean. They often haven't given any thought to changing the work culture either. We find that the emotional and cultural factor is grossly underestimated.
For example, if you want more agility and self-organization, as a manager you also have to accept that flat hierarchies are the result, i.e. managers lose power and influence and employees are given more autonomy and a say. It is important to understand this and then experiment with how the existing work culture in the company can be changed so that collaboration is as efficient as possible. A new spatial concept with fewer individual offices and more zones for meeting and exchanging ideas can promote this, but that alone is not enough.