With digital, the traditional workplace is changing, only those organizations that can provide a flexible, engaging workplace – wherever it may be – will attract and keep the highest quality employees

In an ever-increasing digital world where the boundaries between personal and professional lives are blurring, people’s expectations surrounding the way they can stay informed, act upon the information they receive and communicate with others is changing.

Expectations of where, when and how people work are changing, and by 2020, 40 percent of working populations will be generation Y and expect intuitive and innovative ways of working (intelligence group).

Digital technology has now reached a point in its evolution where the opportunity to work flexibly irrespective of location, or even time zone, is creating a social revolution in the way that people perceive their working lives.

The meteoric rise of consumer-focused technology such as smart devices, app stores, and social networks is also fuelling an impatience for the workplace place to catch up. However, many organizations are still highly dependent upon manual processes and aging legacy technology that stifles creativity and productivity. After all, it is employees who ultimately deliver business outcomes and therefore employers need to consider how they can best enable their employees’ satisfaction and productivity while in the office and while outside of it.

With digital, the traditional workplace is changing, only those organizations that can provide a flexible, engaging workplace – wherever it may be – will attract and keep the highest quality employees. Technology alone is not the answer; social enterprise implementation is. The modern generation of an employee simply expects their workplace to extend anywhere for use anytime and be as intuitive as their personal devices. The divisions between the office and home, leisure, and work are all blurring such that there is no longer a clear definition of ‘a normal working day’. Users need a Digital workplace that fits with their rapidly changing and individual needs.

• Connected - In a digital world employee (DWP) expect to be connected at all times regardless of whether they are in the office, onsite, at home or whilst traveling
• Engaging - Users want a workplace experience that is simple and intuitive to use, and that mirrors the consumer grade experience they have become used to
• Efficient - Employees expect workplace solutions that support and empower them, delivering business insight and automating tasks where possible to free up valuable time
• Secure - In the age of digital ubiquity, a transformed workplace experience needs to be personal and protected and defend against accidental or malicious use - yet be as frictionless as possible

The Digital Workplace is a flexible, secure, workplace solution available anytime on any device with an Internet connection. It transforms and simplifies how user users access data, applications, and services, enabling greater collaboration and supports new workstyles.

The minute you disconnect employees from their office desks, you started a revolution. Motivation and productivity are now heavily influenced by the qualities of the digital workplace you provide. With digital technologies like cloud, mobile, it offers instant control over accounts and secures mobile access to a complete range of business applications and services.

When considering DWP, it is critical to consider the intersection of People, Places, and Platforms to drive efficiency within the working environment. These combinations of people, places, and platforms will help enterprises to derive the following value.

• People + Platform = drives a need for usability, efficiency, intuitive UI, social integration, etc.
• People + Place = potentially drives a need for facilities integration, dynamic changes to schedule basis on events happening
• Platform + Place = potentially drives a need for secure but frictionless networking, ISP integration, etc.

Within Atos and Atos customers, digital technology leveraged covers the 360-degree view of DWP. In it's Digital Workplace Portfolio, Atos provides six primary hubs that combine leading technologies such as end-user analytics, journey analytics, smart dashboards, virtual assistant, evergreen applications, and collaboration tools such as the O365 suite—all integrated and customizable to customer’s requirements.

• App devices and OS - Device management, software distribution windows (laptop, desktop, tablet, phone), Android (smartphone, tablet), iOS, OSX, (laptops, tablets, smartphones)
• Mobility Suites- Mobility management, BYOD
• SaaS integration – Office 365, circuit, share a file, archiving values, etc.
• Enabling Technologies – voice-enabled technologies, next level service management
• Security – user security, data security
• Big data journey analytics - Understanding what is really happening - an end to end intelligent journey analytics & proactively taking action
• Automation & Cognitive Virtual Agents - Automation of service requests, combined with virtual agents will transform user support
• Omni-channel Engagement - Embracing a mobile-first approach
• Robotic process automation - for automating repetitive processes
• Intelligent and holistic search - across multiple data lakes
• IOT integration with Meeting and desk booking, Workplace digital signage, Physical space design, Smart lockers, etc

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors' and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of this publishing house