Digital Workplace of the Year Awards

Digital Workplace of the Year 2019 is American Express

American Express really wowed our judges this year – with high scores across the award criteria, but especially for their ambitious strategy focused on improving employees’ working lives, their robust business case, governance at both strategic and operational levels, and their truly comprehensive approach to engaging users in the process, including a specific focus on raising the digital dexterity of the workforce.

It’s not just that American Express have shown that they’re really good at digital workplace – they demonstrated that they’re doing it in their own unique way that suits their business, culture and people.

Runner up for Digital Workplace of the Year 2019 is Barclays

A close runner up, the judges rated Barclays’ mature digital workplace entry extremely highly. In particular, they were impressed by its crystal clear strategy and focus on employee experience, extensive user engagement work, features that add real value such as mobile enablement and a personalised access point for tools and information. They also were able to demonstrate real impact for their programme, including cost savings, reduced contact centre calls, quicker access to information, and high user satisfaction.

The awards for specific areas of achievement, in no particular order, are:

Stagecoach receive an award for Enabling the Frontline.

The judges were impressed with Stagecoach’s laser focus on enabling the frontline and improving the way the business operates. They’ve delivered real benefit to drivers and engineers with their Blink app including two-way communication, incident reporting, rotas, holiday requests, chat and more.

Korn Ferry receive an award for Comprehensive Approach.

Delivering a successful digital workplace means getting a lot of elements and practices right – a challenge for any organisation. The judges noted that Korn Ferry scored well on all the key areas we look at: strategy, business case, governance, features, user engagement, and benefits. For that reason we want to acknowledge the comprehensiveness of the approach they’re taking to delivering their intelligent workspace.

Ferrero Group receive an award for Employee Focus

The judges always love to learn about a digital workplace story where the users are right at the centre and that was certainly the case for Ferrero Group. They engaged employees at all stages of the design and delivery of their digital workplace, called Forward, including extensive user research and feedback.

Domodedovo Moscow Airport receive an award for Knowledge Management

This entry impressed the judges with its mature and extensive knowledge management programme in the digital workplace. They’ve embedded an impressive set of social and KM tools into their online environment, for instance a knowledge base, communities, expert locator and more. They’ve also been very proactive in helping users adopt and make the most of them.

Sommet Education receive an award for Medium-size Organization

We typically get some big players vying for the Digital Workplace of the Year award and they can be hard to beat for smaller organisations. For that reason the judges were unanimous in wanting to acknowledge the entry from Sommet Education in Switzerland for their good early work on the digital workplace journey in the form of their MyPlace intranet. MyPlace offers a personalised experience with translated content, collaborative features and mobile access to a globally distributed workforce of just under 1,000.

Digital Workplace Leader of the Year 2019 is Marc Bramoullé at Ubisoft

Marc is Director of Knowledge Management Services at Ubisoft. For nearly a decade, Marc has been at the forefront of a series of radical changes to Ubisoft’s digital workplace environment.

He’s been hands-on with various aspects of the programme over the years including enterprise search, the enterprise social network, content strategy and management, as well as developing the digital workplace vision.

He leads a diverse international team of experts at Ubisoft, engaging and motivating them with his vision and energy for the digital workplace.

His digital workplace vision is driven by a knowledge management approach that is successfully fostering collaboration, boosting individual efficiency, and growing efficiency across the company’s 15,000+ staff. His relentlessly user-centric approach to delivering digital tools to staff is evident in their 98% satisfaction rate with KM tools.

This year the Runner Up for Digital Workplace Leader of the Year is Linda Tinnert at IKEA

Linda is Solution Area Lead for Digital Workplace at IKEA. A pioneer in the digital workplace industry, she led the early and innovative movement within IKEA to evolve from intranet to digital workplace. She put in place a robust programme that is delivering benefits year-on-year for both co-workers and the business. As a pioneer in the industry, Linda has been way ahead of the curve for a decade or more, inspiring others with her passion and leadership.

The awards for specific areas of leadership, in no particular order, are:

Toni Vanwinkle at Adobe wins the Employee Experience Leader Award

Toni is the Senior Director of Digital Workplace Experience at Adobe where she’s transforming the digital employee experience at Adobe through the ambitious programme of work she’s leading. She applies a relentless focus on understanding how employees work best and delivering the unified, personalised digital experiences that will enable them. Tangible progress on this path include an employee experience framework, rationalising the technology portfolio, streamlining workflows for key processes, and fostering a culture of experimentation and learning.

Dianna Langley at Oxfam International wins the Connected Workforce Leader Award

Dianna is the Digital Workplace Manager at Oxfam International where she has lead the creation of an ambitious, knowledge-driven digital workplace for Oxfam International within a challenging NGO context, connecting around 10,000 worldwide colleagues. Under Dianna’s stewardship, Oxfam has adopted a best-of-breed approach, introducing an eco-system of tools, that has helped her colleagues collaborate, knowledge share and act as one organisation.

Melissa Brandebourg at Charles Schwab wins the ‘Game Changer’ Leader Award

Melissa is the VP Digital Workplace Technology at Charles Schwab where she is leading the strategy to shift the organisation toward a more modern digital workplace. In just under 3 years she has already started bringing about game-changing transformations. These include formulating the strategy and roadmap for the digital workplace and getting buy-in at C-Suite level, leading the implementation of new technologies, and helping drive culture change.

Dan Ranta at GE wins the Collaboration Leader Award

Dan is the Executive Knowledge Management Leader at GE and is responsible for a vision and strategy that are focused on connecting people to leverage the collective expertise of its workforce. Vibrant, active communities and forums are at the heart of this programme of business-driven, impactful collaboration. He’s ensured that the programme is supported with robust governance, analytics, taxonomy and curation – helping ensure sustainability.

Mike Fraietta at BNY Mellon wins the Innovative Leader Award

Mike is Senior Principal Product Manager at BNY Mellon where he’s responsible for delivering the MySource intranet as a front door to the digital workplace in order to enable the company’s 50k+ employees to better connect to tasks, content and colleagues. He takes a thought-provoking, innovative approach to raising awareness of new ways of working and bringing about change in the business.

If you have any questions, please contact us at: dwawards@digitalworkplacegroup.com

The Digital Workplace of the Year Awards are produced by Digital Workplace Group and Simpler Media Group, publishers of CMSWire.com