The world is currently a global village thanks to technology and several innovations. Circumstances motivated some of these developments; different challenges led to different discoveries and innovations at different eras. After all, finding solutions to problems and challenges is what technology is all about.

Now, more than ever before, especially with the COVID19 experience, the use of technology and computers have become more rampant within the organization and our personal lives.

More schools are going online, more professionals are working from home, and more businesses are opening online platforms to meet the growing demand for digital services. You can now order anything you desire, from groceries to heavy industrial machinery, from the comfort of your own home, and have it delivered to your location. This is the power of Technology!

Workers no longer need to converge at a physical location to get work done; offices are now online, and meetings can be held from anywhere in the world. By simply clicking on a link, you can participate in a meeting taking place anywhere in the world.

Indeed, the world has become smaller than ever before!

A digital workplace is one in which the office or business space is relocated from a physical location to a cloud-based place. All of the workers’ applications, data, tools, and cooperation are relocated to a secure web interface where they can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, and on any device.

Just like the head and tail of the coin, the digital workplace has its advantages and disadvantages.

The following are some of the benefits of working in a digital environment:

1. Improves employee communication through blogs, charts, and other means.
2. Gives employees quick access to several apps required to get work done.
3. Employees save time by having access to a central platform where they can access all applications, company data, and a variety of other tools all at once.
4. Assists in the immediate and accurate dissemination of information to employees. With a single click of the send button, information is sent to all parties involved.
5. Job assignment with deadlines to concerned employees is simple, and progress may be tracked in real-time. Employees are more accountable and responsible as a result of this.
6. Assists in the display and integration of the company’s values into daily tasks.
7. Increases revenue for the organization in question. Consider the cost of using an intranet, which is a type of intranet that allows employees to communicate with one another within the organization, to train staff against the expense of using human resources. When compared to the wages paid to trainers to accomplish the same goal, the use of training films to train newly hired employees is definitely reduced.

The disadvantages include the following;

1. Face-to-face communication offers a significant advantage. Face-to-face interaction promotes better teamwork, and when it is missing, an employee may feel isolated and less enthusiastic.
2. In the absence of interpersonal communication, an employee’s skill and ability may be negatively impacted, resulting in unproductivity.
3. Since technology may fail at some time, total dependence on it may represent a problem, and in situations where employees are already used to it, it becomes even more problematic when it fails and there is no personal presence as an alternative.
4. There will always be a need to upgrade the system as work progresses to stay up with the evolving technology; however, this comes at a significant cost that will influence the company’s profit.
5. Switching from one platform to another may be necessary at times. If the incorrect digital platform is utilized in this situation, finding the ideal platform to fulfill the business needs and please their clients could be a big task, both in terms of resources and time.
6. Change to the platform that employees are familiar with would undoubtedly pose a threat to some employees because people react to change in different ways.
7. Cyber-attack is one big risk of the digital office, which cannot be ruled out. This has the potential to be a major danger to both the business and its stakeholders.

We now understand the benefits and disadvantages of working in a digital environment. If we want to move forward with our businesses, we have no choice but to adopt the digital workplace in the current situation, especially with COVID 19.

In fact, given the COVID 19 situation, digital transformation is advancing at a breakneck pace, and competition is strong.

We live in a digital economy, and the digital workplace is the perfect place for companies to thrive and grow.

Employees are now more empowered in the digital workplace because they are the users; the key is to personalize the technology to match their demands while being flexible enough to accommodate the various levels of understanding.

Employees should be trained on the job on a regular basis to adapt to the effects of any technological changes that occur.

Employees are as crucial as customers in the decision to choose a platform for any organization because there can be no successful digital workplace without them.

Sources 

https://www.interactsoftware.com/blog/pros-cons-digital-workplace/https://kissflow.com/digital-workplace/everything-about-digital-workplace/