WORKPLACE OF THE FUTURE, TODAY // BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY
What is the goal of the organization? Increased collaboration? Document retrieval? Whatever the case, the organization needs to be aligned with the outcome, says Heggerud. She notes Microsoft Office 365 and Google G Suite are two of the more prominent digital workplace tools available today. Other players gaining traction in this space include Slack, Dropbox or Box and Workfront or Asana. When it comes to implementation, companies should ask employees what they’re struggling with today before attempting to create any sort of digital workplace, says Mike Hicks, chief marketing officer with Igloo Software, a Canadian-based digital workplace solution provider. What they like and what they don’t like about the tool set they are being given. Where do they think things are being dysfunctional? What’s frustrating them? “Then work to figure out what you need to do to solve those problems,” says Hicks, whose firm has worked with companies such as Enmax, Hulu, Cigna, Canfor and Gildan. “You can’t underestimate the difficulty in change management across the board.” Adds Heggerud, “If anyone has ever tried to take up an exercise plan, quit smoking, give up chocolate, it’s really hard if we rely on external motivators. Employees need to buy in to the change and believe that it is in their best interest. Then they will change their behaviour to use the new tool.” Radcliffe urges companies to ditch traditional change management thinking because it assumes employees will “just get it.” “The historical perspective on change management is to create some posters, send out some emails, offer a couple training modules and hope it works. That’s like throwing darts at a wall,” he says. “We see a lot of companies that are struggling with change management because they never really considered it enough in their initial roll-out phases. They just assume people will adopt the new tools.” Instead of a traditional big-bang waterfall-like roll-out, Radcliffe recommends companies adopt more of an agile and iterative approach to introducing their technology, and factor training and communication into their plans from the outset. That could involve engaging an early adopter group in initial phases where employers see those interactions first-hand. In subsequent phases, those early adopters could collaborate as project champions on the materials and education needed to successfully switch over to the new system.
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OCTOBER 2019 // BUSINESS IN CALGARY // BUSINESSINCALGARY.COM