Overview

This best practice provides recommendations to help drive employee adoption and engagement of your digital workplace solution.

Engagement Recommendations

• Keep it fresh - a digital workplace with stale content won't get used – it will wither and die. Whether it’s content, conversations, or recent activity, regular updates ensure everyone is engaged and in the loop.
• Design for work, don't work for the design - design should never dictate the way people work. Form should follow function. Organize your digital workplace in a way that’s familiar. Use simple and clear language. Make it easy to perform the most frequent and important tasks.
• Keep it simple - resist the urge to put more onto the homepage. Focus on providing a clear sense of direction, so you don’t confuse and overwhelm your users. Serve up the most appropriate content for any screen size, whether you’re mobile or not. Take an inventory of your assets, remove redundant and outdated information, and consolidate the rest. Everyone will thank you.
• Rally the troops - launching your new solution shouldn’t be a solo mission, especially when it comes to content. When you’re ready to start populating your site, make it a collaborative effort. Set aside 30 minutes to create a mandate for your site. It should describe WHAT you do and WHY you do it. Share it with your digital workplace team so you can go forward together. 
• Publish best practices - with your mandate in hand, establish Standards of Practice for your content managers. Clarify roles, create guidelines, set up a recurring meeting in your team calendar, and start to share knowledge and best practices with your site team. 
• Make it fun - outfit your team in gear like t-shirts, lanyards, or buttons to get attention around the office. 
• Reward - accolades, kudos and swag are a great thank you gift for your contributors, but they also help build awareness. 
• Promote storytelling - encourage rookie collaborators from across the business to help you build your site. Seek them out, and involve them early in the process. They’ll be invaluable resources all along the way.

Creating your engagement plan

Here are some sample questions to help you create your engagement plan:

• What activities are you planning to promote the behaviors you are looking to drive?
• What is your plan to keep employees coming back? Why is it relevant:
• How are you going to leverage your champions & leaders to model the desired behaviors?
• Have you identified and addressed potential risks to adoption?
• What exactly will you do to make the overall engagement strategy and performance more effective?
• What programs will you create and launch? One time versus ongoing?
• How will you promote openness and transparency amongst your users and stakeholders?
• How will you ensure no group has undue influence or access?
• How will you tailor the engagement strategy to the commitments and interests of your key audiences/stakeholders?
• How will you support and promote feedback and improvement?
• What measures will you implement to ensure accountability and cost-effectiveness?