Lucidea’s Lens: Knowledge Management Thought Leaders
Part 105 – James Robertson

James Robertson is a thought leader on intranet strategy and design, digital employee experience, digital workplaces, web content management, and technology selection. He is Founder and Managing Director of Step Two, a vendor-neutral consultancy.

James helps organizations select a suitable intranet platform or web content management system. His team gives out the annual Intranet and Digital Workplace Awards.

Here are definitions for five of James’s specialties:

• Content management: Creating, managing, distributing, publishing, and retrieving structured information – the complete lifecycle of content as it moves through an organization.
• Digital Experience: The take-away feeling an end user has after an experience in a digital environment. Using digital technologies, it provides some kind of interaction between a single user and an organization, usually a company. Mobile apps, websites and smart devices all provide digital experiences to customers, partners and employees using them to interact with companies.
• Digital Workplace: What an employee reads and does digitally while working. Enables new, more effective ways of working, raises employee engagement and agility, and exploits consumer-oriented styles and technologies.
• Intranets: Private computer networks that use Internet protocols, network connectivity, and the public telecommunication system to securely share part of an organization’s information or operations with its employees.
• Portals: Websites that provide personalized capabilities to users via customization, building blocks, and integration of multiple sources.

James created the following content. I have curated it to represent his contributions to the field.

Books

What is digital employee experience (#DEX)?

#DEX is the sum total of the digital interactions between a staff member and their organization

What’s the value of DEX? The power of a concept can be measured in how it shapes thinking and actions. The digital employee experience provides firms with a range of benefits.

• Holistic. DEX enables a cohesive perspective to be taken on the digital challenges (and opportunities!) for organizations.
• Strategic. The big-picture view provided by DEX allows activities to be tackled that have a strategic impact on how organizations operate.
• Integrated. With the holistic and strategic view of DEX, it becomes possible to establish governance that lines up and coordinates the many digital activities that are planned or underway.
• Innovative. With the sense that the battle to deliver a great customer experience is winding down, digital employee experience provides a new way of standing out from competitors.
• Human. Staff members are clearly placed at the center of the digital employee experience, which is where they belong!

First lens for DEX: time (aka career progression)

Whether a new hire stays for a year or their entire working life, their digital employee experience should be supportive and empowering.

The classic HR models of the employee journey can be used to put shape around this:

1. Recruitment. Potential (and future) staff are assessing their experience from their very first point of contact with a business, before they even join the firm.
2. Onboarding. A crucial stage where staff are ideally helped through the complexities and uncertainties of a new organization.
3. Progression. As they progress through their employment experience, employees should be supported and encouraged to take on new challenges and opportunities.
4. Departure. The final weeks and days of employment leave a lasting impression, which can strongly affect other current and prospective employees.

Second lens for DEX: space (aka the digital workplace)

The digital workplace is a key component of digital employee experience. It provides a framework for understanding what is delivered to employees, as well as how.

In the context of DEX, these are the key elements of the digital workplace.

1. Devices and systems. The IT component of the digital workplace, ranging from mobile phones to productivity tools and business systems.
2. Capabilities. What employees are able to do, from accessing information on a mobile device, to conducting searches and collaborating with others.
3. Activities. The myriad of interactions that happen every day, ranging from quick clicks to full business processes.
4. Insights. How the digital workplace provides information, surfaces what’s happening and empowers employees with knowledge.
5. Experiences. From an end-user perspective, was the experience difficult and complex, or intuitive and productive?

Intranet Roadmap

Developing a Knowledge Management Strategy

1. Identify the key staff groups within the organization. These groups deliver the greatest business value or are involved in the most important business activities.
2. Conduct comprehensive and holistic needs analysis activities with selected staff groups, to identify key needs and issues.
3. Supplement this research with input from senior management and organizational strategy documents, to determine an overall strategic focus.
4. Based on these findings, develop recommendations for addressing the issues and needs identified.
5. Implement a series of strategic and tactical initiatives, based on the recommendations. These will select suitable knowledge management techniques and approaches.