Empower your employees and create a more productive workplace

Effective collaboration Is the key to the success of modern organisations dealing with the accelerating pace of change and an increasingly complicated business environment. But embracing true collaboration requires the right cultural mindset and fit-for-purpose technology.

There is no point introducing new collaboration tools to allow your employees to work where and how they want, if the organisation’s rules remain as rigid as ever.

In this whitepaper we look at the forces driving change in the modern workplace and the journey you can go on to a more collaborative, flexible and secure environment for doing business.

“MILLENNIALS, THOSE BORN BETWEEN 1980 AND 2000, WILL MAKE UP 35% OF THE GLOBAL WORKFORCE BY THE END OF 2020.” – MANPOWER GROUP35%

THE CHANGING WORKPLACE

You know that a fundamental shift is underway in the workplace, driven by changing demographics and enabled by technology that allows your team to be more mobile, to work from any device and collaborate on projects digitally.

Millennials, those born between 1980 and 2000, will make up 35 per cent of the global workforce by the end of 20201. They have grown up with apps in their personal lives that save them time and let them consume and create content the way they want to. They are demanding the same type of tools to allow them to work more effectively as well.

At the same time, the world of enterprise technology is being transformed with cloud-based services, mobile applications, artificial intelligence and more effective user interface design letting people work in different ways.

This is a trend to be embraced, not resisted. The evidence suggests that organisations that prioritise collaboration are more likely to be profitable, to outgrow competitors and to attract the best talent.

Research from Deloitte and Google shows that workplace collaboration adds $46 billion per year2 to the Australian economy alone with managers and workers spending around 10% of their time collaborating with colleagues. But, over half of Australian businesses don’t have a collaboration strategy and are missing out on the benefits as a result.

The most successful modern workplaces are designed with collaboration, flexibility and security at the core. When organisations can deliver this, they’ll find their teams are empowered to work more effectively both internally and with customers and partners.

1 Manpower Group’s analysis of UN population data 2 Deloitte Access Economics report The Collaborative Economy

THE CURRENT STATE OF PLAY

Most organisations are at least considering their approach to the modern workplace. Managers see first-hand evidence of the forces that are changing how work is done, from the impact of disruptive technologies and changing demographics, to new economic imperatives and changing customer expectations.

The challenge is delivering a simple and compelling user experience across apps, devices and services that drives productivity and encourages collaboration.

Many organisations, for a variety of reasons, are unable to meet this challenge and are constrained by a legacy working experience.

Technology – the legacy challengesThe reality of many enterprise IT systems is that they don’t reflect what is now possible to achieve with collaboration technology. Many organisations have still not:

• Taken advantage of the opportunities for mobile and remote working, remaining instead with a primarily office-based workplace experience.

• Consolidated core workplace applications such as email, document management, teamwork and telephony systems.

• Recognised that security is no longer constrained to the physical network, due to the growth of BYO (bring your own) device and application practices and the greater movement of information.

Outmoded ways of workingThe workplace still stuck in legacy mode is dominated by email traffic, lengthy face-to-face meetings and employees who have developed their own workflows and workarounds to deal with their frustrations with systems that aren’t built with collaboration in mind.

A recent Forrester Research global study of information workers revealing that 42% work from home and 32% work from client sites or during travel. More flexible workplace practices, enabled by technology, are no longer a nice to have feature, but an operational imperative.

But IT managers and CIOs seeking to modernise on-premises IT systems can quickly become overwhelmed by the options available, not to mention the cost of managing these systems and migrating users to them.

Consequently, knowledgable workers dealing with outmoded systems and ways of work may feel compelled to come up with their own ways of working, using apps and services that technically haven’t been approved for use in the organisation. The rise of ‘shadow IT’ is a real problem in organisations that are no longer delivering tools and enabling work in ways that are fit for purpose.

However, enterprise workplace tools, particularly in the ‘Software as a Service’ model, have matured to the extent where they truly can be considered accessible, affordable and effective. There is a sustainable path to a modern workplace that builds on many of your legacy and on-premises systems. It may not be as complicated as you think.

“With the right collaboration tools in place and a culture that supports their use, workplace teams can be more engaged and productive while working together to get the job done.”

A better way – collaborative,

flexible, secure

The Deloitte and Google research also showed that Australians who collaborate in the workplace work 15% faster, with 73% feeling that they do better work.

Indeed, the changing nature of work is demanding greater collaboration. Projects increasingly require a multidisciplinary team with input from different departments and external subject matter experts.

With the right collaboration tools in place and a culture that supports their use, workplace teams can be more engaged and productive while working together to get the job done. Take a tool such as Microsoft Teams, for instance. Included in any Microsoft 365 licence plan, Teams brings people together in one collaborative space regardless of where they are in the physical world. It includes a

raft of functionality including group chats, online meetings, voice calling and web conferencing.

It lets users collaborate on and co-author documents using Office 365 as well as third party apps. Putting all your important documents in one central place and allowing relevant team members to work on them together, while using integrated messaging and calling tools, is increasingly at the heart of the modern workplace.

The widespread use of video conference tools, instant messaging applications and the application of ‘presence’, so colleagues know the status and availability of their colleagues at all times, has removed many of the barriers to communication when employees are no longer all in the same room at the same time.

AUSTRALIANS WHO COLLABORATE IN THE WORKPLACE WORK 15 PER CENT FASTER

73% OF AUSTRALIANS WHO COLLABORATE IN THE WORKPLACE FEEL THAT THEY DO BETTER WORK

15% 73%

COLLABORATIVE – EASIER TO WORK TOGETHER

98% OF RESPONDENTS FELT THAT ANYWHERE WORKING HAD A POSITIVE IMPACT ON THEIR PRODUCTIVITY 98%

Keen to attract the best talent, employers are offering more flexible working. Many people can effectively work the hours that best suit their lifestyle and remote work is on the rise, enabled by improving broadband speeds and apps that make the best of your internet connection.

Numerous studies and surveys point to the virtues of flexible working. A survey commissioned by Polycom3 and involving 24,000 workers worldwide, including Australia, found that 98% of respondents felt that anywhere working had a positive impact on their productivity. Further, 62% wanted access to collaboration technologies that would allow them to work with colleagues from anywhere.

Workers now expect to be able to work while they are on the road, reviewing documents on their smartphone during a quick flight between cities, sharing their desktop in a four-way video conference call from their laptop and editing a document on a tablet with the new version instantly updated for everyone on the team to see.

3 The Changing World of Work: A Global Survey 2017 4 Global Happiness and Wellbeing Policy Report 2019

Evidence also suggests that flexible working improves work-life balance and worker well-being which can also pay off for the organisation in the form of boosted productivity. The 2019 Global Happiness and Wellbeing Policy Report4 found that a “meaningful increase in well-being yields, on average, an increase in productivity of about 10%”.

A MEANINGFUL INCREASE IN WELL-BEING YIELDS, ON AVERAGE, AN INCREASE IN PRODUCTIVITY OF ABOUT 10%.⁴

10%

FLEXIBLE – ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, ANYWAY

SECURE – ALWAYS ON PROTECTION

Gone are the days when an organisation’s sensitive data was locked down for access only on desktop workstations in the confines of the company premises. Security in the cloud has evolved to incorporate full end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, threat protection and detection, document access management and the concept of a single sign-on for each employee across every device, app and service.

The result is that working remotely and collaborating with more people does not need to compromise security. As a result, the IT department has transitioned to become an enabler of collaboration and innovation rather than a gatekeeper, jealously guarding access to systems and data.

The rise of the cloud workerThe transition to hosting your organisation’s applications and data storage in the cloud is a key enabler of the modern workplace. The scalability, security and flexibility of the cloud allows your workforce to access their digital tools of work, often through nothing more complicated than a web browser on a laptop or tablet, with multi-factor authentication protecting access to the data held in the cloud and on numerous devices.

One in four information workers are now cloud workers and 81% of enterprises5 that use cloud services are taking a cloud-first approach or prioritising the cloud for new business apps. The cloud is supporting employee productivity by making it easier for them to access the tools and information they did and use device form factors that best suit the task.

But not all organisations are ready to adopt a cloud-first approach. Infrastructure needs to be upgraded and investments made to spur the move from predominantly on-premises servers to cloud-based delivery of your essential applications.

5 Forrester Rethink Technology In The Age of the Cloud Worker 2018

81% OF ENTERPRISES THAT USE CLOUD SERVICES ARE TAKING A CLOUD-FIRST APPROACH.5

81%

Several years of rapid growth, culminating in the acquisition of New Zealand tech company Intergen in 2014, resulted in an ASX-listed company with a workforce of over 1,000 people across every major city in Australasia, working in cross-functional teams to serve customers big and small.

The challengeThe business needed collaboration tools that would allow software developers in Christchurch to effectively work with business development managers in Perth.

We had to remove organisational and functional silos, reduce time spent searching for information and break our dependency on email as a communication tool.

Working across time zones and multiple locations, including at our customers’ premises, we needed a way to maintain discussion threads and centrally manage information.

Our meetings with clients were generally face-to-face, requiring meeting rooms and time spent travelling.

EMPIRED’S JOURNEY TO THE MODERN WORKPLACE

Our approachThe drive to facilitate better collaboration came from the top, with the senior leadership team identifying our business priorities and setting the agenda for change.

We assembled a team featuring representatives from IT management to human resources, sales to marketing. Together, based on feedback from across the company, the team formed a view on how we work, from presales to project delivery and managed services. They also considered how we needed to use technology to facilitate better collaboration, from greater use of mobile devices to working at client sites and from home.

We had to make some clear governance decisions up front, considering the pros and cons of a “wide open” versus “locked down” approach, balancing convenience and security and designing our system to contain the sprawl that can weigh down IT systems.

The solutionWith our business needs mapped out and our governance and change management team in place, we set about evaluating the technology we would use to unlock the potential of our workforce. Empired was already using Skype for Business for calls and messaging. But the platform

didn’t accommodate SharePoint integration, which would prevent us from putting our knowledge and communication in the one place.

Similar limitations existed for the popular communications tool Yammer, which offered great messaging functionality but lacked meeting and call capabilities. SharePoint Online (SPO), the cloud-based service for managing and sharing content was already widely used at Empired but didn’t have messaging and calling features built-in.

Our scoping project led us to a relatively new Microsoft tool – Teams, which offered calling and video conferencing, chat messaging and SharePoint integration, all in one convenient interface.

The outcome

Adoption of Teams across Empired has led to the following benefits:

• Cost and time savings as video conferences replaced face-to-face meetings

• Faster access to information leading to increased productivity

• Thirty established Teams are hubs of collaboration and information sharing

• Staff surveys show increased workplace satisfaction

ESTABLISHED TEAMS ARE HUBS OF COLLABORATION AND INFORMATION SHARING

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Embracing the modern workplace involves four pillars of work that group into the following areas:

Moving to the Modern Workplace

PROCESSPEOPLE TECHNOLOGYINFORMATION

PEOPLE

The move to the modern workplace is as much about culture as deploying the right set of technology tools. Cultural change needs to be led from the top of the organisation, but at the same time, be embraced at every level of the organisation.

Senior leaders need to understand what greater collaboration and flexibility looks like and have confidence that the goals of the modern workplace can be achieved without compromising security. More remote working and flexible hours could mean more time spent in video conferences and chatting in instant messaging applications. Is the organisation ready for that?

While the drive for change comes from the top, equally important is getting input from the grassroots workforce. New ways of working can’t be forced upon employees. They must be co-designed and evaluated as they are developed.

Use cases for each type of employee in the organisation should be considered so that everyone’s needs are met. What types of devices, apps and services do you currently have and how will they need to change as the nature of your employees’ work changes?

Persona mapping is a good technique to better understand the needs of your employees and what you need to equip them with in the modern workplace.

A good transition plan will usually involve a team of people drawn from across the organisation who understand the technology roadmap, the cultural change underway and who can communicate that change at every stage of progress.

“New ways of working can’t be forced upon employees. They must be co-designed and evaluated as they are developed.”

PROCESS

Enabling a flexible, collaborative and secure workplace won’t happen overnight. Depending on your priorities and level of resourcing, it may happen gradually over months or years as the right policy and technology changes are made in the organisation to accommodate the new culture of work.

But a good process to navigate these changes and bringing everyone in the organisation along on the journey is essential. Good communication is a key aspect of that. There should be a robust communication plan in place to let people know of the change ahead and ongoing support to help them adapt to the new changes.

The modern workplace won’t come to life with the change to or installation of some new apps or devices. It may well be iterative, evolving based on the feedback of users. Attention should be paid to effectively gathering this feedback and, where necessary, making changes based on it.

Throughout this transition process, there needs to be a strong focus on adoption. What is required to get people engaged in the new working environment, using the new tools available to them, capturing the benefits of the modern workplace?

INFORMATION

Working from a strong evidence base as to how adoption is tracking is crucial. Many applications and services offer insights into usage which may identify where technology is underutilised or where further training is required.

Microsoft 365 usage analytics let you build custom reports and compare usage of applications across departments of your organisation, including an adoption overview and product usage report. You can also get metrics on how communications tools are being used and how people are using services such as SharePoint and OneDrive to collaborate on projects and documents.

Having the ability to access this information gives you tangible evidence of how successful your modern workplace adoption actually is. It can also help you determine your return on investment (RoI) for the entire project.

WHY TOOLS FAIL

Percentages indicating which of the following are the main reasons why collaboration tools fall short of enabling desired initiatives.

SOURCE: Harvard Business Review Analytic Services Survey, March 2016

TECHNOLOGY

You need to select the right tools that are going to enable the collaboration, flexibility and security you require for your modern workplace. This requires you undertake an evaluation of where you are in your digital transformation, the types of tools that can be supported with your existing infrastructure.

More fundamentally, you need to consider the type of employee experience you are seeking, which will determine the technology mix you seek to employ.

Clearly, you want to use tools that simplify your technology environment rather than complicate it, employ solutions that you can get up and running relatively quickly and maximise your investment by choosing technology that is upgradable, scalable and interoperable with the core applications and services on which your organisation depends.

Unfortunately, too often organisations implement technology that goes unused. This is particularly true of collaboration tools. A study by the Harvard Business School6 found that if employees have a poor experience with collaboration tools, they will shy away from using them, which can lead to siloed workplaces as employees revert to what works best for them.

6 Harvard Business Review Analytics Services Report 2016

Lack of integration with other business processes /

overly siloed

3844Not enough

employee utilisation

35Lack of alignment with

user workstyles and preferences

26Too complicated to set up

and too difficult to use

CULTURE CHANGE

The vision needs to come from the top of the organisation with champions for change also spread throughout

the organisation.

IN THE LOOP

Have a strong communications plan in place to introduce the

changes to people before they are introduced (crucial

for large organisations).

GATHER INTEL

Use analytics to see how your employees are taking to the new environment and tools and regularly

ask for feedback on how things are going.

QUICK ADOPTION

Start with collaboration tools that can be adopted

relatively quickly to enable your employees to confidently embrace the

new ways of working.

FOLLOW THE ROADMAP

Get a good plan for technology roll-out in place and put the right

accountability and oversight in place to make sure

everyone stays on track.

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Time to change? Five things to consider

HOW WE CAN HELP

At Empired, we have helped dozens of organisations implement the modern workplace and improve their employee experience. Our experts know the best processes to ensure technology adoption is successful and can advise you on the preparation you need to make.

Get in touch to talk to one of our Modern Workplace experts and download our eBook: Five key tools that will make your workplace truly modern.

ABOUT US

Our mission is to help our customers empower and engage their employees through a secure, collaborative and flexible modern workplace.

With technology as the enabler and us as the digital transformation guide, we exist to help organisations to engage their customers, empower their people and enable the future, achieving tomorrow’s advantage, delivered today.

Empired.com/WorkYourWaySecurely