Define and track
your Digital Workplace KPIs

Implementing a Digital Workplace makes it possible to unify all of the company's communication tools (social networks, email, instant messaging, etc.) and its document management (collaborative workspaces, digital documents, etc.) and thus contribute to the organization's digital transformation. It is also an excellent way to meet employees' expectations, when 82% of employees surveyed want the quality of their digital experience at work to be improved, and 61% of them say that IT problems are frequent (according to the Nexthink study on the digital experience of employees in 2020)!

But the implementation of such a project and the post-roll out monitoring and management are two different things. And each of them has its own importance. So how do you define (and monitor) the relevant KPIs to ensure that your Digital Workplace is evolving well?

Here are some of the answers.

Reminder: what is a KPI?

A KPI (Key Performance Indicator) is an indicator that is intended to help measure the performance achieved in relation to an objective. It is used to guide action to achieve a predefined strategy, but it can also be used to define new strategies, based on the results obtained.

Defining the objectives of the Digital Workplace

The main objective of a Digital Workplace is to positively transform a company in digital matters. By bringing together the digital tools used by companies, the Digital Workplace makes it possible to increase productivity and efficiency and to encourage collaborative work. This objective is nonetheless very broad: if you want to measure and analyze the performance of a Digital Workplace, it is important to define more precisely the objectives and expected impacts on the organization. For example: to increase the level of information available to employees in the company by X%, to reduce the number of meetings from X to Y, to achieve such and such a level of savings thanks to the reduction in the number of trips, to strengthen the employer brand and improve recruitment...

The SMART method, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound, can be used as a guide. The objectives defined must therefore have these characteristics.

The SMART method enables a sufficiently precise and therefore effective strategy to be put in place, which precisely measures the stages and results of a project.

Here is an example of a SMART objective when implementing a new collaborative tool in your company:

Specific: The objective is to facilitate the adoption of the tool and to facilitate collaboration between employees
Measurable: This involves measuring the general adoption of the tool, using indicators such as the rate of engagement (user interaction with a publication), the number of active users, the average number of shares of posts and news, etc. For example, a company can set a target of 500 active users, for an engagement rate of 5%.
Achievable: This is about setting a goal to achieve, fairly and consistently. If your company has 1000 employees, for example, it is unlikely that you will get 500 active users in a month.
Realistic: The target set should be reasonable and concrete, taking into account the company's size and characteristics.
Time-bound: The objective must be limited to a set time-frame, with deadlines and a well-defined target date. For example: an increase in the rate of engagement of 3 to 5% within 1 month at such and such a date, a doubling of the number of active users between month X and month Y...

Linking KPIs to selected objectives

Each objective chosen by the company (e.g. improving collaborative working through the Digital Workplace) must be associated with a KPI.

In general, several metrics can be analyzed:

Usage metrics (tool usage rate, most viewed sections, time spent on each section, etc.);
Engagement metrics (number of documents shared, number of shares, number of "likes" under each post, etc.);
Efficiency metrics (improved productivity and team dynamics, time savings, etc.).

Here are some examples of objectives and associated KPIs if you want to improve collaboration through the implementation of a Digital Workplace:

Foster collaboration by measuring the new tool's adoption rate, the engagement rate, the rate of interaction between employees:
Increase employee engagement by measuring the number of likes and shares of posts;
Optimize your internal communication by measuring the opening and reading rate of your communications;
Promote knowledge sharing by measuring employee interaction, number of post shares and productivity rate;
Increase user satisfaction by measuring the tool's satisfaction rate, participation rate and engagement rate.

Once you have defined your objectives and the KPIs that follow on from them, you need to determine how you will collect your data.

KPIs can be collected in several ways, including

Via specific software (Microsoft Power BI, dashboards, etc.);
By collecting information directly from users, with tools such as surveys, polls, suggestion boxes, etc.

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Choose a schedule of follow-up meetings and the people involved

Monitoring meetings (also known as progress meetings) are important for measuring the success of a project. They allow you to take stock of the different stages of a project and its progress, and also to reinforce the commitment of the teams involved in the project. To be fully effective, monitoring meetings must be held on a regular basis, in order to respect the deadlines defined upstream. They must also be structured around a precise agenda, which will help to avoid wasting time.

The role of the participants in these meetings should be to detect possible bottlenecks, analyze the KPIs at regular intervals (which makes it possible to readjust them along the way, if necessary) and develop strategies to ensure that the project runs smoothly. A schedule of monitoring meetings should be defined in advance. This allows milestones to be set throughout the project and to know which indicators are to be analyzed, and when. There is no room for improvisation in the roll-out of a Digital Workplace!

Automate dashboards with dedicated tools

The use of automated dashboards allows visualizing the impact of the project on the employees and their work practices. These dashboards should answer questions such as: Do employees support the use of the Digital Workplace? Have changes occurred since the implementation of such a platform? What improvements can we already see? Is there an improvement/increase in collaborative work? Thanks to the implementation of widgets, the KPIs can be analyzed directly from the Dashboard: we can thus have a daily follow-up on the evolution of the project.

Automated dashboards can be created with a Microsoft 365 compatible tool, such as Power BI. The advantage: the user can centralize all his data from their Dashboard and have access to the information in a fluid and fast way.

Of course, the use of these tools should not exclude other means of collecting needs and observations, such as surveys or suggestion boxes, which we have already mentioned.

💡To go further in the implementation of your Dashboard, please read our article on : Your Digital Workplace would be nothing without the Personal Dashboard.

Making decisions based on KPIs

First of all, if you want to make a relevant decision, it is essential that the KPIs set up provide real-time information. They must therefore be updated very regularly. There is no point in making decisions based on KPIs that reflect the reality of three weeks ago! In this respect, it should be borne in mind that these indicators are only a means of understanding what is working (or not) in your project and of making the most appropriate decisions in the light of the results obtained. The objective is to analyze the relative value of the KPIs in order to observe trends, analyze and project yourself and finally implement your actions.

The best decisions are those that are made based on the results you see. For example, if you see a low engagement rate in your Digital Workplace, you can firstly ask yourself why (lack of information from employees? Etc.) , and secondly what to do (communicate more, improve the user experience...) to remedy the problem.

In the case of your Digital Workplace implementation, here is what you can rely on to make your decisions:

What to do if the engagement rate is not good: Implement a strategy of Employee Advocacy ; improving the transparency of information; enhancing the value of employees; facilitating the interaction between internal and external communication; turning employees into true ambassadors.
What to do if employees are drowning in a mass of information? Give them the opportunity to personalize their Digital Workplace by subscribing to specific topics, to avoid an influx of information that is not relevant to them.
What to do if productivity is unsatisfactory : Facilitate access to knowledge by improving document management make it easier for employees to search for information to save time; increase the number of training courses.
What to do if the satisfaction rate is below expectations: Show employees how to customize their Digital Workplace and involve them in the project; collect their opinions and suggestions via the survey tool and the suggestion box to understand the blocking points.

Conclusion

Defining and accurately measuring KPIs in the implementation of a Digital Workplace is not an accessory: it is a necessary condition for the success of your project! Very often, CIOs have no idea of the impact of digital transformation on employees. Yet, this impact can make or break the success of such a project...

It is therefore important to choose relevant KPIs and to measure them very regularly, even if it means modifying them along the way depending on the results obtained. We have defined above some interesting metrics to analyze, but none of them can claim to be universal: in other words, it is essential that your teams define the KPIs to be measured according to the specificities of your company and your project.

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FAQ

KPI to track for your digital workplace

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