From human resources to IT to internal communications, several roles have emerged in the past few years in the digital workplace. Just do a Google search on digital workplace jobs. The opportunities are there. Technologists, HR leaders, communications folks and IT — each with a great stake in the success of the digital workplace. They have a lot of work to get done.
Dion Hinchcliffe, VP and senior analyst at Constellation Research, said at the recent Digital Workplace Experience conference, that organizations need, "a sustainable approach to constant change in the digital workplace. Increasingly the last five years, I've worked on a number of very large global digital workplaceprojects, and they all look roughly the same. There's a tiny team of people to try and automate hundreds of thousands of people's digital experiences inside the organization," he said.
What roles specifically are evolving in the digital workplace? Let's take a peek at some emerging roles thanks to the help of some digital workplace experts and online job-board research.
Related Article: Great Employee Experiences Beget Great Customer Experiences
Head of Employee Experience
Fouad ElNaggar, co-founder and CEO of Sapho, said this is a role his company has seen consistently for the past year and a half as companies embark on the journey of building out a digital workplace. “You should think of this person the same way that their employer does, the voice of the end user for internal systems,” ElNaggar said. “This person typically has a background in product, design and user experience and usually has been in the workplace for eight to 12 years.” ElNaggar said it has been amazing to see the reverence that more senior, higher level execs have for this individual. “They literally bounce every decision by them and make sure they have buy-in from what has become the most important stakeholder for companies pursuing a digital workplace strategy, the employee,” ElNaggar said.
Chief Experience Officer
Mike Maughan, Qualtrics’ head of global insights, finds the chief experience officer is a unique title that is emerging in the enterprise. It touches HR, marketing, branding and even product roles in some organizations. “Some of the largest companies in the world have begun naming chief experience officers (CXO) at their organizations because it’s becoming clear that the experiences companies provide is what separates the winners and losers in today's experience economy,” Maughan said. The CXO's role ensures that organizations are able to provide consistent, cohesive and exceptional experiences related to their customers, employees, products and brand, he added.
At Qualtrics, Julie Larson-Green, former CXO of Microsoft, was named CXO in January. “More and more organizations will continue to name chief experience officers to help take their organizations to the next level,” Maughan added.
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Director of Privacy
With GDPR and other privacy legislations like the California Consumer Privacy Act turning attention to privacy concerns, companies like email deliverability software provider 250ok have hired employees specifically for compliance. "Adding a privacy leader to 250ok was a critical step in achieving best practices for both our international privacy and compliance needs,” said Joe Montgomery, SVP of marketing at 250ok. “Having a specialist on staff improves the speed and quality of our process of achieving and maintaining compliance with SOC 2, Privacy Shield, CASL and GDPR, among others.”
Director of Employee Engagement
JPS Health Network in Fort Worth, TX, is hiring for an employee engagement director, according to its posting on Indeed. The role “will develop and oversee strategies focusing on improving the leader and team member experience through culture change and engagement,” according to the post. “This role provides direction for all initiatives including but not limited to employee events, communications and strategic engagement plans for the entire network.”
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Employee Development Coach
Foley Equipment Company in Wichita, Kan. is hiring for this position on Indeed. The position is advertised as working internally with employees to “increase personal development and leadership effectiveness. This role is responsible for delivering exemplary coaching to employees to enhance performance and drive business results.” Roles like this may rise as organizations facing stiff competition for talent look to upskill their existing workers.
Head of Workplace Solutions Digital Analytics Strategy
Fidelity Workplace Solutions in Boston posted this job via Glassdoor and wants a new team member to “drive the strategy and execution” for digital measurement capabilities. “As we continue to transform our business to become digital, it is imperative that we have a well thought out set of measurements that help us drive our customer experience and transform the way we do work,” according to the posting. The new role determines the right measurement strategy that will lead the organization’s transformation. “Bringing an outside-in perspective that compares workplace solutions to other digital leaders is a key aspect of this role,” according to the posting.
Related Article: Do You Need a Chief Employee Experience Officer (CEEO)?
Director, Digital Workplace
This role posted on LinkedIn is for an opening at Valley National Bank in Wayne, NJ. The company envisions the role as accelerating its technology function “to meet our business goals, maximize the business value from our information technology investments, and unleash overarching innovation for our organization, employees and customers.” According to the posting, the role is expected to define and deliver strategies and solutions for digital workplace transformation, including the digital workplace vision, roadmap and governance model.
Emerging HR, Facilities Roles
According to one Gartner report, there is a need for CIO's to build a team that spearheads digital workplace efforts.are three important roles for the digital workplace. They include the following necessary roles, although they are not necessarily official job titles.
- Digital workplace leader - Gartner researchers see this as the CIO (or any IT leader) that works with multidisciplinary talent teams and has deep insight into workplace apps intranets, content services, social networks and technology support.
- Human resources manager - The HR manager recognizes talent needs as digital workplace programs are coupled with employee experience.
- Facilities manager - The physical design of the workspace is critical, and the facilities manager plays a big role, naturally. “This role should try to match the needs of a modern workforce by creating a more-flexible, smarter and better-connected workspace,” Laurence Goasduff wrote in a Gartner blog.
