Editorial
The digital workplace is indispensable. But what makes it effective? Does the digital workplace describe a collection of tools, or is it something more? I believe it’s the latter and see it mainly in a shared, holistic vision of the digital workplace and in joint agreements on how to use digital tools to work and collaborate effectively and efficiently. In this article, I present a new definition in which I include both the technological and the more human elements.
What Makes a Physical Workplace?
Imagine a medium-sized factory hall. It contains dozens of shelving units, hundreds of boxes, a conveyor belt and trucks visible right outside the roller door. Ten or so people are present.
This is not a workplace. At least, not yet. The resources and tools are a start, but some questions remain. What do the boxes hold? Should they be on the shelves or not? Is the conveyor belt in the right place? Will the items arrive or do they have to leave by truck? In short: what exactly is the work of the people in the factory hall?
A factory hall with materials and tools is not yet a workplace until people know what needs to be done. Until they agree who will take on which task, how they carry out their task and how everyone’s work contributes to the whole. It takes a purpose, alignment and leadership. Only then does that factory hall become a workplace.
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What Makes a Digital Workplace?
Now imagine the parallels in a digital workplace. The shelving units might be the folders in Microsoft Teams or Google Drive. The stuff inside the folders are files: documents, spreadsheets and so on. They might also contain digital products for the customer. The conveyor belt is a scheduling application that supports the work process, think Trello or Planner. And the people have to get to work. But what work is it exactly?
Just as with our factory hall, a digital environment is not automatically a digital workplace. Here, too, questions need to be answered. What work do we do here? For whom are we working? Who does what and how do we work together? How do we know if our work is successful? Working digitally requires purpose, alignment and leadership — only then does a digital place become a digital workplace.
Why Definitions of the Digital Workplace Matter
As an organization you need more than a workspace, tools, materials and people for your physical workplace. Put those four things together and basically nothing happens. Yet we seem to expect that it will when we bring together knowledge workers and the digital workplace. Here’s Microsoft 365, enjoy!
That’s not how it works (pun intended), as evidenced in productivity figures from recent years and from the many professionals with burnout complaints. But that’s beyond the scope of my article. Because I believe the challenge has to do with the fact that we don’t have a good definition for the digital workplace.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of definitions of the digital workplace, such as:
- Paul Miller described it this way in 2012: “The digital workplace is the virtual, digital equivalent of the physical workplace.”
- In the same year, Deloitte published a paper: “The digital workplace encompasses all the technologies people use to get work done in today’s workplace ... It ranges from your HR applications and core business applications to e-mail, instant messaging and enterprise social media tools and virtual meeting tools."
- Chris Tubb wrote in 2013: “The digital workplace is the collection of all the digital tools provided by an organisation to allow its employees to do their jobs.”
- In 2015, Peter Geißler said this: “A digital workplace is a central digital work platform that provides information, tools and services regardless of location.”
- Sam Marshall wrote in 2020: “The concept that there is a virtual equivalent to the physical workplace, and that this needs to be planned and managed coherently because it is fundamental to people’s productivity, engagement and working health.”
- James Robertson’s definition is: “A digital workplace consists of the set of tools, platforms and environments for work.” He adds: “A great digital workplace consists of a holistic set of tools, platforms and environments for work, delivered in a coherent, usable and productive way.”
- Tabhita Minten and I further supplemented Robertson’s definition in our book on digital employee experience: “a human digital workplace offers employees (a coherent set of) tools that contribute to a sense of safety, productivity and connectedness, offer space for relaxation, and provide the opportunity to optimally collaborate with others and to grow as an employee.”
- And earlier this year, Reworked published its State of the Digital Workplace 2024 with this definition: “Ever-evolving, the digital workplace combines leadership, culture, technology and practices to yield critical outcomes that impact both operational effectiveness and employee engagement.”
All of those are fine definitions, you might say. They have a number of elements in common as well as some interesting differences. All definitions have keywords such as "productivity," "set," "connectedness" and "collaboration." But while most of them mention that it is about technology, not all definitions include the deeper human elements. That’s what Tabhita and I tried to do in our book, and the Reworked report, for example, also includes engagement in its definition.
Related Article: How I Built a Digital Workplace Practice From the Ground Up
A New Definition of the Digital Workplace
Whatever definition you use for the digital workplace, the following is clear:
- The digital workplace is not a product, but a concept. You can’t buy a digital workplace, although some providers in the market think otherwise.
- The digital workplace is not something concrete, but something abstract. And that requires you to think about the digital workplace with different stakeholders from different angles.
- The digital workplace is not just technology, but requires working arrangements. You can’t set up a set of tools for people without them deciding together how they want to use them.
That last point is something that is still missing in organizations. But if we assume that hybrid and digital collaborative work will only become more important, the importance of the digital workplace will also increase when compared to the physical workplace
Therefore, my new definition of the digital workplace takes into account various aspects of previous definitions, but which no other (to my knowledge) has brought together before. That definition reads:
“The digital workplace is a holistic set of tools that employees use based on shared working arrangements to work (together) effectively and efficiently, contributing to productivity, connectedness and well-being.”
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The Elements of the Digital Workplace
Let’s peel back this definition:
- The digital workplace is a set of tools. It's not one solution, one application or one system. Microsoft 365 is not your digital workplace! These tools exist in conjunction with each other and that requires a holistic vision. Various platform owners have a joint responsibility, but also a shared interest in working together on this.
- You can’t work and collaborate without shared work agreements. It needs to be clear what information can be found where, which tool you use for what type of communication and collaboration and set expectations for response requirements for various types of messages. These agreements must take into account everyone’s personal preferences, can differ per team or department, and also have organization-wide elements.
- The digital workplace helps employees perform their tasks effectively and efficiently. The result is important, but so is the way to get there. The owners of the digital workplace have a joint task to increase not only effectiveness, but also efficiency. In a tight labor market, a strong digital headquarters provides advantages: less lost time, lower dropouts and turnovers and fewer vacancies to fill.
- The digital workplace is a set of tools where people perform their individual tasks and work on collaborative tasks and projects. Professionals do a lot of work independently, from home or wherever; for other things, they meet one another, in the office or virtually. The digital workplace is not for one or the other, but for various forms of work and collaboration. And it helps to think about and always work on internal digital communication, collaboration and service provision. In this way, the digital workplace helps employees, both individually and collectively, contribute to the organization’s bottom line.
- Finally, the digital workplace is a tool that builds connections between coworkers and between people and the organization, and contributes to employees’ well-being. It should demonstrate a (psychologically) safe environment and a culture of respect for everyone’s gifts and talents. Providing space for everyone’s personal character traits as well as quirks. In this way, everyone can contribute to the whole from their own situation. And that’s what organizations are for.
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What Do You Think?
I explored several well-known and lesser-known definitions of the digital workplace above. And while I’m sure there are other definitions out there: some better, some less so, I think the examples I used basically covered the scope of the topic. My new definition tries to bring together that full scope, while emphasizing the need for shared collaboration agreements. I’m curious how you view this and look forward to discussing it further.
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