Empowering Staff Productivity: The 2nd Key of Digital Transformation

This deeper dive into the 2^nd Key referenced in the Tips for Launching a Digital Transformation in an Analog World blog focuses on Empowering Staff Productivity.

An empowered staff is a workforce that feels inspired to create and explore new ideas. They have the motivation to work on behalf of your organization’s mission and further your initiatives. While desiring these outcomes is the goal, an organization must first give their team the tools they need ensure that outcome.

Encouraging Innovation
According to Lin Grensing-Pophal, author of Human Resource Essentials: Your Guide to Starting and Running the HR Function, “Empowered employees feel free to challenge the status quo, which is critical for companies in today’s fast-changing, technology-driven environment.” She believes that organizations and their employees frequently become too complacent in how they operate. A big part of encouraging innovation relies on embracing change and allowing staff members to feel comfortable questioning the status quo.

Facilitating Teamwork & Communication Across Multiple Channels

A part of embracing change in an organization is embracing the notion that communications and teamwork can happen outside of brick and mortar walls.  Your members are communicating via multiple technological outlets including email, social media, and text.  Your staff needs to have the technological tools to meet your members where they are living.  By investing in an efficient technological platform that is device agnostic, not only will your staff be better equipped in working with your members, but they will be work better with each other.

By having the most up-to-date digital tools at their disposal, your organization will be flexible enough to foster collaboration, initiate ideas, and enable staff to communicate with each other whether they are in the office, at an event, or working from home. In fact, many organizations are encouraging more remote work to help staff maintain better work/life balances as well as save the organization money on overhead office costs.

Staying Informed
One of the common things every board requires of its staff is data. Data on members, data on spending, data on events, data on anything and everything. In today’s data driven climate, it’s imperative for organizations to equip staff with the digital tools they need to fulfil their board members’ requests and give accurate reports on all that data.

Legacy systems of the past are not known for being flexible or robust enough to provide employees with real-time data when they need it. If an organization is to not only survive, but thrive in today’s marketplace, it needs to empower its staff with quick, easy, and powerful mechanisms that allow them to access and immediately report on the required data to make more informed decisions.

Matching Engagement
A novel approach to organizational engagement was developed by Rhinocorn Consulting’s Ben Bisbee, who took Newton’s laws of motion and applied them to member engagement. In his second “law” he said: “An individual will continue to engage or grow their engagement when a nonprofit continues to engage or advances the engagement.” This emphasizes the importance of arming your staff with tools that enable them to push out relevant content on a continual basis. The more your organization engages with the member, the more s/he will want to engage w/you.

By obtaining breaking news through social feeds and other mechanisms, you can identify trends and surface relevant content to help energize all of your organization’s stakeholders.

Key Takeaways

Empowering your staff and fostering an atmosphere that embraces change and trusts in the strengths of your team is not always easy, but it is necessary in today’s high-tech world. The more your organization can equip your staff with the best technological tools available the better its chances are of using innovation to support its mission.