Editorial
If your home is anything like mine, you may have some family members who are quite diligent about maintenance. Their rooms are vacuumed, neat and clean. They need no reminding to do these chores, and in fact they’re often excited by the feeling of a fresh, clean space of their own. If you’re really lucky, you teach them how to use the washer and dryer once, and they become an expert through use.
And you may also have some family members who are… well, not so diligent. Maybe you have to wade through their rooms, more than walk, only to discover some long-forgotten snack that not only shouldn’t be there, but might by now be evolving its own civilization. They need constant reminders and refreshers on how to use the washer, and they come to you to (re)teach them every single time. And of course you do it, because the alternative is to let their garbage spill take over the house.
If you’ve ever managed an intranet, the analogy is clear.
What’s the Problem?
Intranet managers need to educate content managers how to use the content management system, just as I need to teach my kids how to use the washing machine. And just like some family members can remember chores better than others, not all content managers remember these skills equally well.
Many use the content management system so rarely you can hardly blame them for not remembering. Content manager turnover is real, as well, and so goes the repeating cycle of training, retraining and retraining again.
Related Article: Digital Tools Only Work If Employees Know How To Use Them
Without proper content management, everything else suffers: Search results yield duplicate and outdated content; document titles are gibberish and unsearchable; permissions are so wide open that users get results from other countries, brands or both; and on and on.
As digital workplaces transition and expand, the number of systems employees need to understand intricately has increased exponentially. Businesses are beginning to take notice.
For example, according to the Reworked 2023 State of the Digital Workplace Report, “Digital Literacy and capability” was cited among the top priorities of all respondents, and named the number one priority among mature digital workplaces:
In my experience, employees are also feeling overwhelmed by the onslaught of digital tools, making adoption an increasing challenge as well.
They struggle to know which tool to use for what purpose (is this a Chat item or an email?), and they often misuse familiar tools they do know well, such as Microsoft Excel, because they don’t know or understand the full capabilities of other available tools, such as Microsoft Planner, that may be better suited to a given task.
As digital workplace adoption has risen, concern about lack of digital literacy has leapt along with it, the same report found:
So what’s the solution?
Enter the Digital Workplace Shepherd
Shepherds protect and encourage their flocks. They direct them to the best fields to graze. They redirect the misguided; they rescue the stuck or struggling. The flock knows and trusts their shepherd. They turn to him for protection and guidance when they’re confused or intimidated.
Similarly, the digital workplace needs a patient, gentle champion to play a similar role: to ensure best practices, to optimize search, to prod content owners to keep content updated and to prevent duplication — all with the ultimate goal of improving the employee experience and reducing digital friction.
To be precise, our digital workplace shepherd should:
- Drive technology adoption.
- Counsel the business —“which tool to use.”
- Create and manage a centralized repository of resources (videos, how-tos, etc.).
- Work with key partners to drive employee experience initiatives.
- Make our digital workspace a pleasure to work in.
- Manage a network of enablement agents (“Champions”).
Who Should Be a Digital Workplace Shepherd?
Digital workplace shepherds must master a wide range of skills not commonly found in the same person. They need to…
- …understand the business and its needs, and not just as a casual observer. Ideally, shepherds are positioned within the business, not in IT. This may be a controversial position, but in my experience, IT team members get isolated among technologists, which can reframe their priorities from experiential to performance-based (technical). They’re also more likely to be “rescoped” in such a way as to undercut their value from the business’s perspective, or be removed altogether if IT faces intense budget scrutiny.
- …understand, speak, and love “IT.” Shepherds are the “translators” between the business and IT. While technologists often jump into solution mode, shepherds can play a vital role as mediators, closing communication gaps and heading off miscommunications in real-time before they snowball into serious issues. Perhaps most important is that this comes from a place of love. Shepherds appreciate and empathize with their IT colleagues.
- …have a natural love of technology. They’re tinkerers by nature who need to understand how things work. This is how they provide value — by understanding the inner workings of technology well enough to head off serious structural issues, without getting lost in the deepest weeds. It’s this understanding that allows them to appreciate the challenges their IT colleagues face, and to advocate on their behalf.
- …be dot connectors. They have a broad understanding of the company, and a personal network to match. They know who’s responsible for a wide array of systems and processes, understand integrations and dataflows and intuitively recognize how a reported problem is part of a bigger issue. The best shepherds are insiders with many parts of the business, and they gain this favor by being helpful in seemingly small, but significant ways, like shortcutting an arduous process for a key constituent.
- …be a natural community builder and coach. They enjoy helping others, changing behavior and encouraging adoption with patience and interpersonal savvy. This is another side of the “dot connector” coin.
Related Article: Is Your Digital Transformation Headed for Trouble?
Who are These People?
I can hear Jerry Seinfeld asking now. I get it: We’re calling them shepherds, but we’re describing what sounds like a unicorn — a blend of technical knowledge and interpersonal savvy that is so rare as to become legend. But I propose that this combination of traits is becoming, and will continue to become, more and more common — especially as newer generations of workers rise to senior leadership. Ten years from now, the vast majority of workers will have grown up with technology in a way that previous generations did not. With that transition, we’re seeing a broader level of familiarity with the presence of tech in general (though comfort with specific tools, principles and systems may vary).
What may be best of all, is that shepherds have a way of making themselves known. Because they’re eager to be helpful, if they’re competent, they’re likely to become popular with their coworkers.
If we listen and pay attention, we find shepherds hiding in plain sight.
Gaining Buy-in
So I’ve convinced you, but let’s be honest, you’re an easy sell. To us, the need and value of a shepherd are self-evident. But how do we convince leadership to invest?
- Show them the data. Start with your own in-house data — engagement survey results, consultant findings and anecdotal stories and observations that support your case. Also show them what we’ve pulled together above, to demonstrate this is a real need with financial implications.
- Ask them to reflect on their personal experience. If they’re honest (and not completely insulated from the employee experience), they’ll agree this is an issue immediately.
- Ask them to perform a basic task. If they’re not honest, or they are completely insulated from the employee experience, then challenge them. This isn’t easy, I know, but it’s essential that we reveal the truth, and nothing shines light like personal experience. Simply asking a senior leader to perform a common, seemingly simple task (that you know is broken), and forcing them to feel the frustration themselves, is a sure way to gain concession that there’s a problem to be solved here.
- Lead by example. Even after making a brilliant business case, sometimes the funding for resources just isn’t there. Personally, that’s when I roll up my own sleeves. If you know what needs doing, and have a vision for how to do it, make it your own goal. Once the value is there and the work is being done, you’ve demonstrated the need, and you can frame it as a “backfill.”
Related Podcast: How to Reduce Friction in the Digital Workplace
Shepherding the Shepherds
Until AI replaces us all, employee self-service tools will continue to need champions who are patient coaches and innate problem-solvers. Those who can bridge the gap between humans and technology will rise in both qualitative and quantitative value. The old adage that “if the tech is good enough, no training should be needed” may be convincing to those who want to believe it, but those of us who face reality every day know better.
Onboarding a Digital Workplace Shepherd doesn’t require years of requirement gathering. It doesn’t take a project team and it doesn’t cost millions of dollars. Best of all, it’s a solution that anyone can interface with: a real-life human being.
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And ultimately, isn’t that what we all gravitate toward? Just ask my kids, who still, remarkably, ask old Dad before they ask Google. We should all take note, and embrace the moment.
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