Who is responsible for the digital workplaces in 3 year's time?

Speakers for the upcoming European DEX Conference - IntraTeam Event Copenhagen March 2-4 were asked: "Will there be any changes to who is responsible for Digital Workplaces in 3 years?"

Here is what the answered:

I think knowledge managers will have more and more responsibility as the Digital Workplace will connect more and more.

- Agnes Molnar, Search Explained

In most large companies the responsibility will be in a cross-functional team (not just IT or Communications). The young generation demands a consumer-grade Digital Employee Experience and that requires more involvement from HR and other group functions.

- Christian Skj?ran, VELUX Group

More and more companies will view their platform as a product and thus set up a permanent cross-functional product team that includes specialists from Communications, HR, IT, Digital Transformation (if that is a separate unit).

- Christoph Schmaltz, Thinknext

Hopefully the intranet/digital workplace will increasingly be the responsibility interdisciplinary teams, bringing together different skills and perspectives.

- Heather Hedden, Hedden Information Management

Increasingly it will be recognized that there can’t be just one “leader” of Digital Workplaces. Instead, there must be a “guiding coalition” consisting of HR, IT, internal comms, and most importantly: the business.

- James Robertson, Step Two

Successful companies build DW teams with multidisciplinary competence. But many companies will still have problems with governance in the future.

- Jesper Bylund, Region Sk?ne

As the services integrate more and more, individual owners become less powerful. I see value in bringing together relevant streams that define the Digital Workplace: IT, Comms, HR and Facilities, mainly. United in an ‘Employee Experience Board’, they should own the workplace.

- Joris Kok, ING Bank

I see a change in the way the work with Digital Workplace is organized. For a while it has in VELUX been a shared responsibility for IT, HR and Internal Communication. A coalition and a collaboration that has not always been easy. We need to be better at collaborating across functions and we need to bring in the business that is fronting our customers and our products. In the future, I expect to see break down of siloes through the establishment of Digital Workplace/Employee Experience/ Digital Employee Experience functions. And I expect the Power Platform to get into play and change the way we work radically, making us more effective.

- Line M?ller Roland, VELUX Group

Not necessarily. We are going to see the consolidation of an emergent business practice that’s becoming more and more relevant over the years: transversal digital transformation teams. Knowledge workers and practitioners from different divisions/business units (IT, HR, Sales, Marketing, Communications, Transformation Office, etc.) will come together to construct those teams where everyone and no-one will own their digital transformation efforts. That co-ownership concept will remain one of the several successful efforts from any Digital Employee Experience initiative. Either we all co-own it, or no-one will. The one single business unit being in charge will, finally, become a thing of the past!

- Luis Suarez, Panagenda

If it is still IT then we are all doomed

- Martin White, Intranet Focus

A continual battle between IT and core functions like HR and Internal Comms. Neither is likely to exclusively be responsible, yet they need to better work for same goals rather than in opposition to each other.

- Martyn Perks

More business involvement

- Nina Sonne Nikolaisen, COWI

Hard to say but I expect HR to be taking more of an interest and perhaps even active responsibility.

- Steve Bynghall, Spark Trajectory

I think that responsibility should be shared – it has to be a partnership between IT and the business.

- Susan Hanley, Susan Hanley LLC

Shared accountability will continue to develop, but as always much will come down to budget. Budget holders will continue to get what they want despite even the best Digital Workplace strategy. I can only hope that shared accountability will lead to shared goals and shared approaches.

- Wedge Black, ClearBox Consulting

Organisations who take this seriously will have dedicated cross-department, multi-disciplinary teams, who understand the needs of staff and apply human-centred approaches to delivery.

- John Baptiste-Kelly, Wellcome