Digital workplace solutions have become a must have tool for many businesses over the last couple of years. Teams looking to deal with challenges that revolve around communications, collaboration, productivity, among others, often face two main choices: (1)  implement a host of standalone collaborative tools and applications that deal with each specific case separately, or (2) deploy a holistic digital workplace with built-in collaborative add-ons that can also unify any tools that are already in place.

Although the choice depends entirely on unique business and team needs as well as the existing IT infrastructure, IT buyers and decision makers agree that digital workplace solutions are important. In fact, according to a research study conducted by CMSWire, 95% of  respondents believe that a digital workplace is an important pillar of their digital transformation strategies. But what makes these solutions so appealing to businesses?

In this blog post we will make the case for digital workplace solutions and walk through the various benefits of digital workplace they bring to your business.

• Create a robust corporate culture

The very essence of a successful business is a robust corporate culture. We often hear this term thrown around a lot when companies want to showcase their brands and offerings and appeal to potential clients and job candidates. But what do we mean by corporate culture exactly? And how a digital workplace can help create or convey it?

In its simplest form, think of a corporate culture as the identity or personality of a given business. It represents the shared vision, purpose and values that define the overall working environment and how – and more importantly why – operations are conducted in a specific way.

In an article published on HBR, John Coleman went through the six components of a successful corporate culture which are: Vision, values, practices, people (obviously), narrative and place.

Examining each component individually, we can quickly understand that a corporate culture mainly revolves around people.

As any CEO, HR or Communications specialist will tell you, establishing a vision (what we want to achieve), values (what we stand for) and practices (how to achieve our vision and put our values into practice) are all aimed at shaping employees’ behaviours and creating the perfect working environment. However, if the first three components are poorly communicated, then employees won’t know what, how and why they do things in their company.

This is when a digital workplace comes into play. In order to properly convey the company’s narrative and create a transparent working environment, businesses need a central hub that can act as the place from which employees can get the latest corporate information, stay updated on the latest news and simply feel part of the company.

The most essential digital workplace feature that can help you effectively convey the company culture and perfect the art of corporate storytelling is “News”. With a built-in “News” feature, your HR and communications specialists will have a medium through which they can easily create, post and share news within specific communities or the entire company. The news article can later be liked, commented on and/or shared by employees thus giving them a direct communications line to voice their opinions and participate in various company wide topics and discussions.

Another digital workplace feature that can help deliver the company policies and practices are wikis. Specifically designed to act as a rich knowledge base or a point of reference to employees, wikis allow employees to easily access a variety of content specific to the company as a whole (such as policies and procedures) or teams (roles, responsibilities etc).

• Eliminate communication silos

Disconnected teams and communications silos are among the most recurrent challenges facing businesses and for a good reason. The impact of poor communication in the workplace can be devastating to the team dynamics and eventually the performance of the entire organization.

Additionally, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic made matters even more challenging. With remote working becoming the norm for many, the potential for communication silos have become even greater especially for businesses who lack the tools and policies to deal with such crises.

Digital workplace solutions have been among the tools that many businesses adopted to deal with communication issues in the workplace. Whether through native messaging or video conferencing functionalities or an integration with third party communications platforms, digital workplace solutions act as the central communication hub within which employees can communicate in real-time and hold meetings whenever and wherever they are and from any device. This obviously helps businesses maintain their operations away from the office and ensure their workforce is constantly connected.

• Enhance the onboarding process

Effectively onboarding employees is key to help them understand their roles, know their peers and get off to a good start. It is also the first step towards ensuring their short and long term engagement and avoiding any voluntary turnover.

According to an Equifax study, 40% of employees leave their jobs within the first month, with a further 10% leaving during the first year. These findings show the importance of a clear and tailored onboarding process and digital workplace solutions might be your best bet to get this right.

Through their social and collaborative nature, digital workplace solutions provide new hires (whether those who work in the office and especially those who work remotely) with detailed steps to follow in order to familiarize themselves with the platform and their surroundings.

Within the people directory, for example, a new hiree can search and connect with his/her peers and get to know who is doing what in the company.

The spaces directory, on the other hand, is where a new hiree can access and join spaces designed for teams, corporate news, communities etc. Examples of spaces include a corporate newsroom, where employees are provided with the latest news, activities and events. For a newcomer, being a member of such spaces is extremely important in order  to integrate the culture and learn more about the company as a whole.

Wikis and dedicated training spaces are also digital workplace features that can assist employees to have a better understanding of company policies, learn their roles and resp