Three Aspects in Building a Digital Workplace

Digital workplaces are about building an environment with abundance of information and culture of innovation, to put people at the center of business, and both engage employees and delight customers. There are still many questions haunting around about:  Is it possible to have an effective digital workplace where the culture is more command and control, where the chosen solutions simply mirror / reinforce the way of working within that hierarchy, but do so very well? Or is it a prerequisite of an effective Digital Workforce to have that more open culture, and so "traditional" organizations are facing a culture change task alongside development of a more effective Digital Workforce, and in fact this is more a sustainable culture for them anyway? And could you be imposing the current values of collaboration and openness on an effective Digital Workforce, and discounting organizations who aren't making progress in developing their own Digital Workforce? When setting the workplace policy to enforce digital management, Are you thinking of guidelines for people? Do you have a basic business conduct policy that people sign when they join?
The most effective digital workplace is one where collaboration and sharing is the norm. The least effective culture at fostering this is traditional command and control environments. So digital technology such as enterprise social computing could be effective tools to breakdown  a hierarchical culture, and businesses have to figure out a more efficient way of bringing people together to follow a vision and "lead from the top." Is it possible to have a more “closed” organization successfully pursuing the Digital Workforce vision? Generally speaking, where you find an effective Digital Workplace initiative, regardless of the organization, you will also find some similarities in culture (open, visionary leadership, encourage an element of experimentation). To be most effective, information has to flow more freely, hence the issue with command and control management is that it stifles fluidity and agility due to its hierarchical structure or overly rigid processes.
At a truly digital workplace, people are climbing the social ladder more proactively, to complement the traditionally corporate ladder. We all know, the traditional career ladder is so narrow, and often cause people to compete unprofessionally. At digital workplace, talent people are encouraged to discover their own purpose and strength, well aligning with business purpose, and be equipped with a growth mind, this is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with the values, an idea that is incompatible with their values, norms or practices will not be adopted as rapidly as an innovation that is compatible. One of the biggest obstacles to a successful digital workplace is that people (not just senior management but all employees) just don't see the value or importance of contributing digital content, posting or responding to questions, online discussions, writing articles, making videos, blogs, collaborating online or even simply just updating their own profiles. People are happy enough to 'lurk' or view content but when it comes to actually creating something, it's a real battle in many organizations to convince employees to do this. But to inspire thought leadership and encourage brainstorming the new ideas, employees need to climb up the digital ladder, from reading through, to commenting, and producing the digital content and building a professional brand which foster corporate brand as well.
The purpose of setting digital workplace policy is to harness cross-functional communication and collaboration, also enforcing information GRC. Because communication across the business is both a reflection of the culture and influences it. This is the same for a digital workplace - the tools made available, what is easiest to use, the options provided to help people talk, connect, share - all reflect and influence the culture of the workplace. It’s important in findings into common cultural characteristics associated with technology adoption and use, and early indications seem to show that cultures that have strong vision and leadership, are outward looking rather than insular, are willing to accept a degree of risk and experimentation, etc are those who are more likely to experience more successful adoption of new technology.
A digital workplace encompasses so much that it's hard to isolate it from other dimensions of the enterprise. And there is no such magic formula to fit in every situation, but overall speaking, digital organizations are all about people centricity, empathy, innovation, agility and high level business maturity.

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