The best\ndefinition of Modern Workplace I can think of is a very short one: it is a fulfilled\nDigital Transformation. Once the transformation has been completed, we are able\nto offer our employees a workplace which will truly lives to its marketing\nslogan: work anytime, from anywhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the same\ntime, nothing has been so filled with marketing myths, and misused for\nmarketing purposes, as much as this topic. Of course, everybody will understand\nsomething completely different under those terms, the same way that everyone will\nseek different outcomes from what we know as digital transformation. No two\ncompanies are alike. Those different perspectives, different goals, the lack of\na precise definition (try to google it!), and above all the marketing misuse of\nthe whole story, polluted \u201cModern Workplace\u201d and \u201cDigital Transformation\u201d, two\nterms from the very first sentence of this blog post. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas it\ndoesn\u2019t have to be so: the idea of Modern Workplace is a good one, and the IT\nindustry is working on achieving it since its beginnings, but especially since\nthe early 2000s. And we have come a long way \u2013 a lot has been achieved until\nnow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if we\nestablished that different companies will pursue different outcomes in their digital\ntransformation process, and probably have different visions of modern\nworkplace, some (actually, a lot of) elements will necessarily be common to all\nof them. In this series of blog posts, I will focus on those common elements, explore\nopportunities, and state benefits to the employees. I will break down that marketing\nslogan \u201cwork anytime, from anywhere\u201d, and buzzwords like \u201cmodern workplace\u201d and\n\u201cdigital transformation\u201d to a list clear and achievable goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole\npremise that we are starting from, is that our employee can, but does not have\nto be in the company offices to fulfill her work. Even more, the large number\nof Fortune 500 companies are increasingly encouraging their employees to use\nthe home office offers, since all relevant scientific studies (like\nthis one from Professor Nicholas Bloom, from Stanford Graduate School of\nBusiness<\/a>) show significant burst in employee productivity and employee\nsatisfaction for home office workers. The same can be applied to business\ntravelers: those are the employees we need to integrate, and to offer them all\nthe possibilities, just like if they would have been sitting behind a work desk\nin their office. And that is a challenge we are solving since… well, almost\nforever.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tailored Information<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Back in the\ntimes, even up until late nineties, large companies had something called\n\u201ccorporate newspaper\u201d or \u201ccorporate gazette\u201d. Those were newspapers or\nmagazines printed with the offset technology and distributed throughout the\ncompany every month. The information employees were getting were asynchronous,\ndelayed and untailored. On the end of the day, those gazettes were mostly the\nwaste of time, money and paper, but they were achieving one goal: strengthening\nthe feeling of belonging, loyalty and togetherness within the company. We can\ndo better now \u2013 it is possible for us to deliver tailored news to the right\npeople in the right time, while still achieving the community feeling inside\nthe company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Content Collaboration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Collaboration\nwas one of the fields which highly profited from the IT industry: today, in the\nage of real-time content collaboration, it is even difficult to imagine how\ncould five or more people work together on an offer, or a contract, only by\nusing five typewriters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communication<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Only five\nyears ago I have been contracting for a company that still used pneumatic\ntubes<\/a> for all crucial communication which included sending and\nreceiving physical documents. To be honest, my job was to make that thing\nredundant. Still: Phone, Fax and informal coffee talk were the main elements of\ncorporate communications. We witness a heavy decrease in phone talks (I don\u2019t\nget more of 3-4 of those per week nowadays), Fax is a synonym for the stone\nage, and the real challenge is to replace that informal coffee talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowledge management<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you\nneeded information or guidance, back in the days you would ask a colleague or\ngo to the company library (yes, those existed!). If you are a home office\nworker or business traveler, it is difficult to do any of that. However,\nlooking for corporate knowledge is nowadays still a combination of\ncommunication and search, just as it was 50 years ago. The means are, however,\nvery different. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electronic Forms<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let us be\nhonest: even after a full nuclear disaster, the only person that will survive\nwill be someone who will bring you a form which you need to read, acknowledge\nand fill in. The bureaucracy is eternal. We will always need to fill in a\nrequest, approve it, and\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digital Signatures<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u2026sign it.\nEven if often neglected as a part of digital transformation, digital signatures\nwere one of the main showstoppers of this process in the past decade. Proof of\nidentity, accompanied by a signature, is an important part of business\nprocesses in lot of companies, and especially in government institutions, which\nshould not be neglected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Process availability<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

All what we\nmentioned until now was leading us to this one point: we need to make our\ncorporate procedures and processes available to the business travelers and home\noffice workers, regardless if those are internal or external processes.\nRequests, approvals, accompanying documents, electronic forms, project-related\nand process-related communication – it all needs to be truly available anytime,\nanywhere, as an integral part of our modern workplace, whatever is our company\nabout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the next\nfew blog posts, I will go through these points, analyze issues and challenges,\nand list the options we have got. <\/p>\n

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