If you are heading into the office today, chances are you won’t stay tethered to your desk for long—if at all. Workplace settings have become more flexible and creative in today’s world, with seamless Wi-Fi access, modern meeting rooms and digital conferencing. Personal devices are pervasive. Our workplaces extend far beyond the office setting, with mobile technology letting us do our jobs on the train, at the coffee shop and from our homes.
Organizations that want to keep pace with a flexible work world and attract and keep talented employees need to create a digital workplace where team members can work seamlessly anytime, from anywhere.
We at Dell IT are kicking off a multi-year effort to do just that—to create a digital experience centered on an agile, highly mobile work culture that gives our team members the freedom to get more done from anywhere.
Understanding your workforce
In the midst of integrating recently merged Dell and EMC into Dell Technologies—the world’s largest privately owned technology company— there are hundreds of issues our IT User Experience team could tackle regarding our 140,000 employees’ workplace environment. So to help guide our digital workplace efforts, we began by surveying our internal team members on how satisfied they were with IT. This gave us a baseline for measurement of IT performance as well as confidence in the investments we are making in our workplace transformation.
After analyzing our survey results, we decided to start by focusing our digital transformation efforts on three workstyles we most want to empower in the year ahead—in the office, at home and on the move.
@Office
Frictionless, contemporary IT in the office.
‘Half of CEOs believe technology is key to attracting new talent’ – Dell and Intel Future Workforce Study
We have a unique opportunity to transform our offices digitally. This includes seamless access to Wi-Fi, modern meeting rooms with easy scheduling and startup, a single digital conferencing solution (we chose Skype Meeting) and contemporary walk-up, face-to-face support.
We are also working to simplify email and content sharing capabilities, replacing the many content repositories now in use with a standardized and easy to use solution.
We are offering some really cool mobile stuff for the workplace as well. For example, we are developing a new mobile app in-house that uses GPS-like beacon technology for finding conference rooms on Dell campuses. Dell’s affiliated company VMware currently uses this app in their Palo Alto, Calif., office with great success.
@Mobile
Bring your digital office with you.
‘The average employee works in a public space two hours per week – Dell and Intel Future Workforce Study
Most of us no longer only work at our desk; the average team member is now highly mobile. IT must match that workstyle. A broader set of mobile apps, online and offline access to content, and seamless access to apps (no VPN required) are all key to enabling an any-place-any-time workplace.
We are developing a one-tap experience for our mobile workforce, with new mobile apps that include seamless authentication, as well as Skype-based video conferencing and IT Support. We are also developing apps that treat employees like consumers incorporating the latest in consumer technology for business use. This includes a Navigate App which guides employees with step-by-step directions to their destination, including features like estimated commute time. Also in the works is a new app that lets managers approve requests with a single tap.
The app suite goes beyond the email, calendaring and basic enterprise apps and will ‘consumerize’ the employees’ mobile experience.
@Home
A best-in-class digital experience from your home office.
‘Two thirds of employees work at home at least part of the time’ – Dell and Intel Future Workforce Study
Better @Home IT experiences are essential with Dell’s flexible work policies. We believe using seamless access to apps, Skype and Skype Meeting, including Enterprise Voice (acts as softphone) allows users to feel connected to teams and colleagues regardless of location. We are developing a single productivity suite for offline and online access to work that will elevate the @Home experience to be on par with the office and truly unlock the @Home work style.
Of course, Dell is in the PC business and so we are also improving capabilities across all workstyles with the latest Dell notebooks, many of which are touch-enabled and all with Windows 10.
This is only the beginning of unleashing the capabilities of a modern digital workplace. We will continue to leverage game-changing technology to give our team members the flexibility and mobility our business demands. Not only is this core to our vision but it is also a necessary focus for all workplaces that want to continue to thrive in the evolving digital world.