A former colleague recently asked me about online communities at work, their value in supporting strategic activities and how to make the most of them. Kirsten Wagenaar and I discussed this and I decided to write a blog as a summary of that discussion.
On the 26th and 27th of February 2019 the digital workplace group presented DW24, a 24 hour webinar which looks at key topics and themes relating to digital workplaces. This provides a fascinating insight for digital workplace practitioners. Allowing them to take a behind the scenes look at what their peers in other organisations are doing with their digital workplace programmes.
Here are some of my observations I’ve noticed this year, reflecting back on previous years and events.
Unfortunately, too many existing online communities fail to integrate in the organization facilitating them. It will come as no surprise that these networks lead a rather dormant existence. To allow a community to reach its full potential it is essential that it is thoroughly embedded in the organization. Only then will there be anything at stake for both the community participants and the employees of the organization. But what is the best way of doing this?
The larger and more formal the organization, the more resistant to change it will be. What this means for communities or social intranets is that, after implementation, it will still take a long time to change employees’ behaviour. So should the organizational culture be changed first, before investing in a social platform? No – this blog will show you that giving employees a social platform is instrumental in any large-scale organizational change.