The face of the digital workforce
Gone are traditional offices occupied by employees during regular work hours. Digital workspaces powered by technologies are contributing to a digital workforce, leading to increased productivity, cost savings and more mobile and agile workers.
But what defines a digital workforce? A digital workforce leverages the capabilities of technologies to perform their duties any time and anywhere. From virtual and global collaboration to adopting a disperse team and even the reengineering of monotonous work using cognitive technologies, the digitisation of the workforce is redefining ways of working.
Furthermore, this integration enhances collaboration and knowledge sharing, which helps improve productivity by connecting expertise with work. It also empowers workers to have better control of how they balance their duties and life, while pursuing their goals.
Here are some ways in which companies can support a digital workforce:
Count on the personal cloud
While cloud technology has dominated businesses, your employees’ personal clouds are just as capable of transforming your business. The virtual combination of cloud-based apps or software-as-a-service (SaaS) and devices employees use based on their personal preferences help to improve productivity and influence how your business performs. Global Industry Analysts projects the global market for personal cloud to reach US$71.3 billion by 2020, thanks to trends such as enterprise mobility, and balancing work and personal responsibilities on devices.
Benefits of bürolandschaft
The German term for office landscape, bürolandschaft highlights how the physical office plays an important role in the digital workplace. With an increasingly mobile workforce, how can companies develop a physical environment that optimises employee engagement? From hot desking to collaboration spaces, smart workspaces not only help to reduce real estate costs, they are designed to encourage interaction and engagement among workers to boost creativity and productivity.
Immerse in digital technologies
Most workers are so immersed in technology daily that they don’t even realise it. Imagine, videoconferencing was once considered an exciting development. Today, technologies such as augmented and virtual reality in the form of training and immersive conference room services are readily available. A recent report by PriceWaterhouseCooper found more than a third of US manufacturers are already using VR technology or plan to do so by 2018.
Take advantage of ambient knowledge
Harness employees’ skills and expertise with algorithm-driven information based on their activities and preferences. This enables knowledge sharing across an organisation, to forge productive business relationships beyond natural work groups. Often used by digital businesses, technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing can extract information from a wide array of employee sources to gather valuable knowledge.
Hire virtual ‘personal assistants’
Workers are increasingly relying on virtual personal assistants (VPAs) to work smarter and boost their productivity. From basic tasks, such as planning schedules and automating daily activities, to completing repetitive jobs, VPAs will eventually become more common as technology advances. Leading IT research company Gartner expects VPAs to be adopted into mainstream markets by 2017. The impact on the digital workplace could be seen as VPAs saturate the digital workplace, enabling workers to become even more efficient. In some cases, VPAs might even perform actions on behalf of their owners based on programmed rules.
FUJIFILM Business Innovation has helped many organisations in supporting a digital workforce. Find out how we can set you up for success today!