Adoption starts before choosing a digital workspace

People have largely been working the same way, since the rise of Windows. So the transition to a new workspace, after working in the same manner for 15 years, is huge. Therefore, adoption is an essential element to keep in mind, while choosing a digital workspace. Recently, a care institution with 1,700 employees started using Workspace 365. Our Customer Success Maker, Georgia oversaw the transition to the adaptive workspace.

Before an organisation transitions to a new workspace, it’s good to know what you want to change. As an adaptive workspace automatically adapts to someone’s role, device and location, it’s vital to know what each employee group will be using in the workspace.

Georgia: “The care institution researched the role their intranet and Office 365 would have within their digital workspace. They discovered that introducing Office 365 would only complicate their business processes.

After discussing this with their IT service provider, they ended up exploring Workspace 365. In the introductory meeting, we immediately pointed out the importance of workspace adoption and how it can impact work.”

What to look for when choosing a digital workspace

Georgia: “After the first meeting, we set up an adoption plan for the entire organisation. Besides a strong inventory plan, we also found it important to give the workspace a fitting name right away.

By giving the workspace a ‘humanlike’ name, the workspace appears more personal to the people who are less skilled in IT. This makes it easier to roll out the workspace in the organisation because we’re no longer talking about a product, but something that’s custom-made for the organisation.”

To increase the satisfaction of the workspace, it’s key to pay attention to the personalisation of the entire workspace. This means that to every person who logs in, relevant information and applications are shown. It’s also important to incorporate your current applications, but also new relevant information sources and intranet components.

How do you increase adoption for new and mobile employees?

It’s of great significance that mobile and new employees are able to learn how to use the workspace independently. This is important for mobile employees since you can’t always bring them together for a training session.

Georgia explains how the care institution handles this.

“To start off, we organised sessions with key users of the workspace, with whom we’ve collectively designed the workspace. Then it was announced to a larger group during a training session and several enthusiastic people were selected to act as ambassadors in different locations, to inform people of the new workspace and to help them with all their questions. In the first week, they wore printed clothes, to make the ambassadors noticeable and to lower the barrier to speak with them.

The ambassadors also gathered feedback to further personalise the workspace with the right applications, forms and communication channels. For instance, the care providers, who visit clients, preferred support through chat, while people from the head office rather walked over to their IT helpdesk.”

After the goal of the workspace was established, an inventory session took place and the workspace was designed, it was time for the launch.

Tools within Workspace 365 to increase the adoption

To make sure that people, who are new to the organisation or work in other locations, can start working instantly without training, there are several tools within the workspace with which they can find information themselves.

The tools below are useful to increase the adoption for the mobile workforce, such as people who work from home, students or care workers who visit patients. The care institution used these tools to increase the adoption of their digital workspace, Workspace 365:

Introduction video in which one of their co-workers, as ‘captain’ (a sort of workspace influencer), shows them what you can do with the workspace.
How to tile with all relevant explainer videos per person. The videos are available based on permissions that have been assigned by the admin. This way, you can, for example, only see the video about the Document App if you have access to it.
Chat integration with which a care worker can instantly search through the organisation’s knowledge base or contact someone from the IT helpdesk whenever there’s an IT issue. Consequently, the care worker can continue their work instantly, without losing focus on the patient.
Analytics connection to measure the use of the workspace and its functionalities.
Application management which allows applications to only be accessible through the workspace. This increases adoption since people can only open their applications in one safe way. Furthermore, people only see relevant applications based on their role, device, browser, location and more.
News messages and social feeds in the workspace cause people to go back and check for new messages. This gives the organisation’s communication department more visibility. They integrate news from SharePoint, though you can also choose to use the Announcements tile, with which you can also measure the number of views and likes.
The feedback button within Workspace 365 to get a response from employees.

Work more efficiently due to a higher adoption

“Because they properly considered adoption, even before choosing a digital workspace, they were able to choose a workspace that they can extensively personalise. Their own intranet has been integrated within the workspace, which encourages employees to use it.

Also, they’ve given it a name, causing people to feel more connected to the workspace. All separate portals and document locations have been reduced to one environment. By using Single Sign-On in this environment, every employee has access to all applications and information with just one login. Consequently, care workers have half an hour to spare every week and everyone works more efficiently and effectively”, says Georgia.

Are you researching new workspaces or are you curious about the adoption process? Contact us.