Digital transformation: What is it? How is it changing routines?

Digital transformation concerns not only the means of communication and sociability, but also work routines. Compliance is at the heart of the work of HR professionals and their obligations in this area are increasingly important.

In a globalized and constantly evolving world, the challenge of technological transformation of the company becomes more essential than ever, and even vital.

This change involves adapting employees' workspaces, which has consequences not only on the way they work, but also on the needs that arise in terms of training and cybersecurity.

What is the impact of implementing digital transformation on quality of life at work?

Digital transformation is often presented as a provider of opportunities in terms of flexibility and cooperation. By “abolishing” distances or facilitating the transition from one world to another (between companies, between departments, teams, between employees and their homes), it is possible to consider more flexible organizational methods:

• better data sharing,
• better access and circulation of information, networks,
• better deadlines, etc.

The automation of certain tasks with little added value or that are painful, the development of robots and cobots can be conducive to a better quality of working life for employees, under certain implementation conditions.

The development of digital technology can give employees the ability to develop their autonomy in the workplace: allowing them to develop know-how or expand their possibilities for action, for example.

However, the restrictions caused by the development of digital technology in the workplace are numerous. This development can be a source of intensification and densification of work, information overload, and increased control over activities with a feeling of loss of autonomy.

More broadly, the development of digital technology points to issues of individualization and disintegration of work groups, excessive restrictions on reactivity, and the blurring of boundaries between private and professional life. Automation can be seen as overdeveloped.

Important Questions to Ask Yourself

It is first and foremost the usefulness and purposes of projects and technologies that must be questioned: in what way are they useful and to whom are they useful? In a balanced way? Homogeneous? Unequal?

How are these projects and technologies accessible? Is there limited, shared, common or restricted access, etc. for this or that type of employee, role and according to what criteria?

It is the usability of technologies that should be a concern and question their ergonomic aspects from the point of view of practicality, fluidity of relationships, etc. No matter how intelligent and artificial digital technologies are, they need to interact and deal with other forms of intelligence in work organizations.

It is about questioning the questionability of projects and technologies. When, how and with whom are they questioned? According to what modalities, given the asymmetries of position between the interested parties?

These elements are more important because they condition the intelligibility of projects, technologies and uses. Because it is from dialogue that meaning proceeds, through the collective construction of linguistic conventions that allow individuals and collectives to discuss and agree on the order of things and construct meaning in work and jobs.

Finally, it is the modifiable or adaptable nature of the project and technologies that needs to be questioned in order to better organize and translate the dimensions of the problems that arise in practice into the reality of work.

Scan the desktop

The success of a digital transformation depends on the ability of managers to change the way they work within their company. Starting by adapting the workspace to your needs is the starting point.

To do this, more and more business leaders are relying on ERP ( Enterprise Resource Planning ) technologies that centralize all of a company's operational processes, integrating all of its functions, whether this concerns accounting and financial management, sales, distribution or even purchasing.

ERPs were usually hosted on internal computer servers in companies, but the trend today is to outsource them to public or private clouds, which provides more flexibility and security.

Advantages

The advantage of implementing cloud solutions is that it allows workstations to be virtualized on a large scale in order to make them accessible from any device, be it a tablet, desktop or laptop PC or even a smartphone.

All this via a Wi-Fi connection, for example. According to experts, “the biggest challenge for managers is to ensure that flexibility and mobility become a reality in the company.”

Whether at an appointment, on a business trip or at home, the employee can immediately find his entire universe of applications, with the corollary of an increasingly blurred private professional boundary.

A cog in well-being at work

It must be said that the quality of the work environment , through digital transformation, is an essential element in motivating this young, hyper-connected generation, very concerned about well-being at work.

Suddenly, to attract millennials, companies are not hesitating to rethink their workplaces, but above all, to accelerate their technological transformation.

In fact, according to predictions from the North American Brookings Institution, the millennial generation, known as Generation Y, will represent 75% of the world's working population within a few years.

Born after the Internet, this new generation of employees has acquired an intuitive mastery of the web and new technologies, which affects not only their behavior, but their way of working.

Companies that do not prepare for this new professional scenario will have difficulty attracting and retaining them, with all the consequences that this implies for the development of their activities.

Cybersecurity

Of course, this new digital workspace must offer permanent but secure access to applications and information. Indeed, at a time when cyberattacks have become commonplace, it is essential to implement an effective cybersecurity strategy, because, mechanically, digital transformation increases the surface area of ​​these attacks.

According to experts, more than half of business owners believe that this transformation does not involve risks. However, to support the company in this process, it may be relevant to obtain support, especially if digital maturity proves insufficient.