Unlocking the future: Inside DWG’s 2025 research programme

Digital Workplace Impact Episode 149: Unlocking the future: Inside DWG’s 2025 research programme

[00:00:01.850] – Elizabeth Marsh

And this year, it was very clear where we wanted to focus, and it wasn’t going deeper into that readiness, into the people readiness, but as you say, also into the team readiness. So how ready is the Digital Workplace team for the way that their roles are going to evolve.

[00:00:20.140] – Nancy Goebel

In this episode, I welcome Elizabeth Marsh, DWG’s Director of Research, back into the studio for an engaging and insightful discussion about Digital Workplace Group’s 2025 research program. In conversation, we delve into the key themes and topics that are shaping this year’s research research agenda ranging from intranet futures to AI readiness and literacy to a number of topics near and dear to the hearts of digital workplace teams and leaders, including change management and other topics. Elizabeth also shares insights on how the program is designed to support and enable those teams and leaders, with an emphasis on the importance of change agility and storytelling in driving digital transformation. This is Nancy Goebel, your host and DWG’s Chief Executive. Digital Workplace Impact is brought to you by Digital Workplace Group.

[00:01:29.810] – Nancy Goebel

Join me now in conversation with Elizabeth to hear all about our exciting research program and how it will shape the evolving needs of the digital workplace. Happy listening.

[00:01:44.130] – Nancy Goebel

Elizabeth, I have to tell you, it is so exciting to have you back in the studio, not only because I love to be in conversation with you, but this also happens to be one of my favorite times of the year because there’s a chance for us to share with not only our members, but our wider industry circles, what research topics are on deck for this year’s program.

[00:02:12.860] – Nancy Goebel

And so for both of those reasons, I’d like to extend a very warm welcome back to the studio.

[00:02:21.340] – Elizabeth Marsh

It’s great to be here, Nancy. Likewise, I very much enjoy our discussions which seem to spark new ideas and possibilities, both what we’re doing in DWG and just personally as well, that inspiration. This conversation that we have each year, a culmination of that whole process that we go through with members and team each year to decide what are we going to focus on in research. It’s great to have this discussion.

[00:02:52.170] – Nancy Goebel

Of course, we know that there are individuals in our circle who tune into this podcast year on year to hear your thoughts directly on the research program and not only what it entails, but how it should be challenging our thinking. But there may be some who are new to our circle and don’t have the history. And so maybe that’s a nice place for us to start. And I think it would be ideal if you could share a little bit about DWG’s research program and even hone in on what you think makes it unique and special.

[00:03:33.170] – Elizabeth Marsh

Maybe I’ll start at the end point to do that, because actually, when I’m thinking about our research program, I’m imagining that end point where this report lands on effectively someone’s desk or digital desk in one of our members, and they use it. They use it to inform their strategy, to understand what other organizations are doing that may help them to tell the story of the digital workplace to their stakeholders. That because it’s member-only, can also highlight some of the pitfalls, maybe the learnings that have come from those other organizations in their own journeys, and that they might also pass that report on to other people in the organization, their team, of course, that becomes part of their training for the Intranet Digital Workplace Team, as they can pass to their stakeholders to help bolster their business case. So that’s the endpoint that I’m imagining, and that leads us immediately to think about what toolkits can we put into those reports? How can we make a report into a playbook? How can we bring together insight from all of our channels at DWG to maybe put together a model that demonstrates good practice in a particular area?

[00:04:58.970] – Elizabeth Marsh

So that’s the endpoint. And coming back from that, it’s about those continual conversations and interactions that we’re having with our members and our wider community that’s informing what are people excited about, what are they concerned about what are they struggling, perhaps because of its newness or perhaps because of the level of hype or confusion, to put into perspective. From there, we have processes which I’ve We’ve talked about this podcast before, we have a member survey. We have now, for the second year, had a research advisory board, very, very valuable group of thought leaders among our members. All of that comes together. The conversations, the member advisors are having all of the meetings. We get this long list of topics, which at first is a, whoa, we can’t possibly cover all of that. It gradually gets whittled down to the topics that really matter this year. Of course, that interlaces with your predictions as well. Then some of those other topics in that longer list inform some of our other content channels as well.

[00:06:08.870] – Nancy Goebel

Ultimately, the research program is a distillation of insights, good practices, examples, prompts to challenge the thinking of our members, and where we share excerpts, our broader industry circles as well. I’ve been chomping at the bit to dive into what the key themes are for 2025. Shall we explore that a little bit?

[00:06:38.600] – Elizabeth Marsh

This year, we’re going to continue our focus on how do you do futuring? How do you future-gaze into the near future to understand where we’re going? And we’re going to focus specifically on intranets. And members have really responded with a lot of excitement about this because that’s the heart of this digital landscape. So that’s topic number one. That research is kicking off as we speak. Connected to that, we will look at the journey for digital workplace teams and leaders. So really understanding how those roles are evolving, the skills, the competencies, the experience. And what the career path looks like, what’s good practice among teams. So that’s very much connected to that first topic, but we wanted to do it justice, so we separated that out. We’ll look at another topic very close to my heart, and this was in your predictions around AI readiness, and I think you talked about the School of AI, so looking into AI literacy and understanding the importance of making sure people have the right skills, the right mindset, to really adopt and use AI in positive ways. That’s three topics. We’re going to look into the digital workplace business case.

[00:08:15.750] – Elizabeth Marsh

So this, as with so many of these papers, this builds a very strong theme we’ve been exploring over a number of years. And it will look both at how digital workplace teams are becoming more data-driven in their decision making, in making that case, and then weave those hard numbers and facts together with the, I guess, centuries old art of storytelling and bring in those qualities that enable people to really sell that story in the organization. We then are going to revisit change management. So just look at the latest techniques and approaches around that, not just for AI, but for the digital workplace as a whole. Our final topic will revisit ideas of the human-centred digital workplace and really bring together tools and techniques for being very user-centric. So some things in there I would expect to be familiar for people, but maybe put into a new light and brought together with other approaches that perhaps they haven’t tried. And so this is a real practical look at those techniques. That’s a sneak preview. You heard it here first.

[00:09:39.160] – Nancy Goebel

Well, I have to say that this feels like a rich set of topics. It balances the strategic and the tactical, the forward-looking and the here and now in quite robust fashion. And so how do you find that balance between all of these spectrums from short term to long term, from tactical to strategic in framing these themes? Elizabeth.

[00:10:16.340] – Elizabeth Marsh

I think that really is the guidance from our members because of knowing the things they’re trying to do now, today, the initiatives they’re putting in place, the challenges that they’re facing. And also the things that are just on the horizon for them. Maybe they’re starting to get asked some questions at a strategic level, and we’re trying to think ahead to prepare. I always remember one member saying, I want you to make me look smart when I’m speaking to my senior stakeholders. And so there’s that element of pushing the thinking, bringing in new ideas. And the research advisory board has really augmented that process because when I present to them, so I present to them a list of 12 topics that we think are the serious contenders, and we just see which ones they jump on and really get their teeth into. And of course, they relate them immediately back to the things that they’re trying to do. So it puts a very real perspective on it.

[00:11:27.060] – Nancy Goebel

It also feels very powerful that with each passing generation of the predictions that have come out under my cover, we’ve gotten tighter and tighter in conversation about how do we create the dovetail effect with the research program. And in part, it’s thinking about how to solve real business challenges, real problems, but also thinking about how we can feed both the ambition and the foresight of our members who span practitioner roles up through and including leadership roles. And so I find that to be a very exciting and fulfilling part of how we’ve been collaborating together. I’m curious if you’ve got any special thoughts about what’s been I don’t know, particularly exciting or surprising about the 2025 program vis-a-vis previous years.

[00:12:39.370] – Elizabeth Marsh

Well, again, coming back to the research advisory board, what really struck me was I let them loose on the topics, and they jumped straight on the AI-ready workforce and the AI literacy topic. It got some quite extensive discussion among among that group and really quite a few concerns about the level of readiness of the workforce to understand and adopt AI, and the extent to which it might be a barrier to the ambitions that are being set out for organizations, both in terms of productivity, but also innovation as well. There was a very clear steer for us to really dig into this topic and look at the skills and competencies that are needed, set out how do you understand the gaps that might be there and the weaknesses, and get a really broad understanding. Of course, we’ve published research previously around digital literacy, generally, so the digital dexterity of the organization, and this report is going to build on that. The thing that I find interesting as I’m thinking about this research is that it’s almost about not thinking about AI literacy. I know that’s back to front, but as members are talking about this, they’re saying, well, as we’re training people with AI literacy, we’re discovering gaps in general, digital literacy.

[00:14:20.460] – Elizabeth Marsh

People don’t know how to use OneDrive or some aspect of the digital workplace. This is a problem that training around digital literacy in the workplace has typically been isolated to particular technological developments or trained for something quite specific, maybe a new application, rather than giving people digital confidence, giving them a broad set of skills and the mindset to try out new technologies. There was research last year from SAP about AI literacy being one of the The biggest factors influencing workforce opinions of AI. That level of confidence and the skills are really, really critical. What I’ve seen both in my own research and I’ve seen in other research is quite a low number, a proportion of organizations really training in a thoughtful and holistic way for AI literacy, as few as one in five organizations, potentially. So it’s a big area of opportunity for organizations. We all say, AI is moving very quickly. We’re moving into the agentic AI as we go into this year. But this is about a broad set of skills as those things develop will help people to really know and understand what it is they’re working with to understand the limitations as well as the benefits.

[00:15:57.100] – Elizabeth Marsh

As with the intranet futures topic, we’re kicking this off straight away, and I think this is going to be big.

[00:16:02.890] – Nancy Goebel

I couldn’t agree more. And one of the things that I’ve been saying in my predictions road shows is that AI readiness and change agility in combination are the skills that will allow people to shapeshift as roles in the organization change. You hit the fast forward button to 2030 or beyond, there are roles that don’t exist today that will be very much at the forefront in that time frame. And the best insurance policy that people can put in place for safeguarding and nurturing their careers is to bring those two things into their bag of tricks. So I’ve even gone so far as to say that change agility is the new currency in the organization. And part and parcel of that is being the evergreen student of your craft, but also helping others see their way through change as well, because that will create a sphere of influence for people. And when I stop and look at the 2025 program, it is about supporting and enabling the workforce at large, but it’s also about supporting and enabling digital workplace as one of those crafts, whether at the team level or the leadership level. And so that’s quite a powerful thread to pull on within this year’s research program.

[00:17:57.710] – Elizabeth Marsh

Yeah, you’ve hit on such an important point is that how we adapt to change, and is there at different levels in the program. Last year when we put together the 2024 program, and it felt like AI was obviously exciting, but slightly a spanner in the works. It threw the whole program up in the air, and then it was like, exactly how are we going to address it at this stage? And what we did last year, of course, was address organizational readiness. So we looked at different levels of readiness in the organization, whether it was technical, governance, et cetera. And this year, it was very clear where we wanted to focus, and it wasn’t going deeper into that readiness, into the people readiness, but as you say, also into the team readiness. So how ready is the digital workplace team for the way that their roles are going to evolve? And we got this building block paper around going back to change management and exploring how do we understand that now? Perhaps change management is not quite the right term now. In fact, perhaps in that paper, we need to talk about change agility. You see, I knew that there would be things that would evolve as we have this discussion.

[00:19:21.000] – Elizabeth Marsh

Whether it’s looking at the way AI influences change management itself or looking at things like behavioral science as a catalyst for change, whether it’s about bringing in adaptive learning paths or storytelling, going out to the champions. So I think there’s going to be some interesting, perhaps, taking a different perspective on that change agility as we go into 2025.

[00:19:53.670] – Nancy Goebel

I want to stay in that space for a moment because, of course, one of the papers that’s on the roster is looking at the business case, and you mentioned that it will explore not only taking a more data-driven approach, but also the art of storytelling that gets wrapped around that data. And It’s just making me think about the fact that in the research that I was doing when drafting the predictions, I stumbled upon an article that talked about how Accenture, in advising their clients, have been saying that for every 20 cents that are invested in technology, there should be a plan to spend three times that amount on supporting and enabling the change paradigm that needs to go along with it. And so in some of our member meetings this past year, it has been clear that digital workplace teams are far from just focusing on the technology side, the change management, the change enablement, the change agility focus has intensified. And so the fact that this is part of the discussion for the 2025 program is important, but also thinking about how that connects back into the business case is going to have a whole new emphasis on how digital workplace leaders need to sell investments that need to be made in the organization such that it does fully recognize the importance of both of those components.

[00:21:57.370] – Nancy Goebel

So often in years past, we have seen communications and light touch activities be the focus of a launch. And then employees were feeling stranded because they actually didn’t know how to work differently by virtue of new technology coming along in the main. And so there’s a real opportunity now to create a new partnership in the digital workplace to support and enable that change agility paradigm that we were talking about a moment ago. And that feels like a very powerful way to reinforce the importance of the digital headquarters and the team that stewards the headquarters in the organization and It felt a little bit like there had been a pullback after COVID about the role and value of the digital workplace, and some teams got disbanded or devolved into different business units, et cetera. But it’s feeling a lot like the strategic importance of the digital workplace has hit a new curve, and we are in a place with this membership program to help digital workplace teams really navigate this new paradigm in very meaningful ways.

[00:23:45.050] – Elizabeth Marsh

Yeah, and what you’ve picked up on there as well is there’s this real interconnection between the topics that we’re exploring this year. And so we started there in the business case and the data and the storytelling, but that’s connecting back to the intranet team and the roles and how they’re evolving and becoming more strategic and needing to really hone those skills at strategic level, particularly in light of the way the digital workplace is developing now. And that also connects across to the intranet futures and how the skills that professionals have needed to run and manage the intranet are now growing. And so that digital HQ, digital comment, that’s a bigger idea of the intranet, as we perhaps known it traditionally. So again, that’s about telling a bigger story. And we’ve seen among a few of our members, some real good storytellers emerging who are telling the story of the digital workplace very effectively in their organizations. I think, and I can relate this as someone from my experience years ago now, but managing an intranet, is I think sometimes we think that we’re not good storytellers. We’re very knowledgeable, we’re very diligent, we’re very through, but for some of us, at least, perhaps we don’t have those skills.

[00:25:20.800] – Elizabeth Marsh

I don’t think that’s true. I’m tapping into some of my experiences outside of work where I’ve been exposed to professional storytellers and who will hold a room of adults in the palm of their hand with their ability to tell those stories. But those stories are so powerful because they tap into our sense of meaning, to our sense of what matters to our values. Actually, when we’re championing the digital workplace, when we’re championing intranets, we’re also often talking about the things that connect us, the things that matter to us in work, and really finding that sense of meaning, being able to work in new ways. There’s a lot of things in there that are quite fundamental. Even if you think as far as, say, the well-being piece, I think people in digital roles are also becoming the auditor of our well-being at work because those digital experiences have such far-reaching effects. And so I think that we can all tap into that story of work into which digital has become woven, into which AI is now becoming woven to really be able to do that. And of course, the data side, we come back to the data and the evidence.

[00:26:46.720] – Elizabeth Marsh

Of course, that means that we can tell stories with even greater power in terms of the difference the digital workplaces can make. So I feel like I’ve gone off on a bit of one there. But I think there’s lots of opportunity in my own journey as a professional, an important moment for me was when I read Susan Cain’s book Quiet, and I realized that I could present and I could tell business stories by tapping into that sense of passion and meaning, even as someone who would quite happily stay behind the scenes and do research until the cows come home. And so I think this is part of our professional development and career pathway as people in these professions.

[00:27:34.990] – Nancy Goebel

Absolutely. And one of the questions that I had pinned for this chat about the research program was to explore what some of the outcomes might be and how they might impact organizations and their digital strategies. And when I think about the journey that we’ve just been over the last 10 minutes or so, we’ve actually honed in on just that. And it’s very clear that these themes are quite interconnected. And I wonder if there are any other outcomes that you were thinking about that we’ve missed so far as we’ve been drilling down into some of the disciplines behind digital workplace as an organizational priority?

[00:28:34.860] – Elizabeth Marsh

Yeah, one that comes straight to mind in relation to the digital workplace team and the roles within that and the skills and competencies. And something I’d What I’d like us to look at in that research is actually the digital workplace team brand and how we tell the story of the digital workplace team as enabling, as being strategically important. We think about our own marketing function within our teams, in a sense, not just doing great work, but really telling the story of that work. I’m thinking of one of our previous award winners, actually, DBS, who always impressed me with their ability to have very tight, very clear, very engaging brand for their digital workplace team. You could feel the difference that that made in letting the organization know that it was doing work that mattered, and that, of course, they had a lot of data and evidence to back that up, which interconnects to that other topic. But I feel that there’s more that we can… Perhaps there’s a little bit more that we can learn from the marketing side in how we present that digital workplace brand, so the brand of the platform, collection of tools itself, and the brand of the team as well.

[00:29:54.010] – Elizabeth Marsh

So that’s something I feel that isn’t necessarily involved in that many changes, but could actually really inspire the team in how they think about and present themselves. And again, it comes back to thinking of certain members and certain people within our circle who really are good at putting that brand forward and telling that story.

[00:30:17.140] – Nancy Goebel

As I stop and think about outcomes, one of the other strings that I’d like to pull on is just to get a read from you on whether you foresee outputs or findings from the 2025 research program having an influence on future trends for the digital workplace.

[00:30:44.670] – Elizabeth Marsh

I suppose what comes to mind straight away is the work around intranet futures. And last year we published a report on a practical guide to futuring for digital workplace teams, looking at tools and techniques to to not look too far into the future, but look far enough into the future to pick up on the signals that are coming through that are indicating how we might need to pivot, how we might need to adapt the digital workplace strategy and we’re going all in. So we’ll be using some of those tools for this intranet futures and looking at 2025, 2030 time scales. It’s a five-year horizon is a very popular one among futurists as being actually… It’s hard, but you can look out that far. Here, I think our colleague, Steve Bynghall, is already shaping this topic up and I can’t think of a better person, really, to take this topic and understand. Firstly, by looking back at the journey so far, so looking at the journey that we’ve been on with intranets over several decades, and the big inflection points where we’ve seen significant changes. And of course, we did a report a couple of years ago looking at the way that social and collaborative gradually interwoven into intranets.

[00:32:16.820] – Elizabeth Marsh

And so he’ll take a look back at where we’ve come and then look at what are the signals that we’re seeing in terms of intranets flourishing? Are they receding in context of our digital workplace tools? How are they developing what we see in terms of that progress, the threats that we might need to understand, and of course, how AI will come into the actual practice of intranet management itself. So the ways that you manage and administer sites, even the ways that you build and implement sites, as well as things like understanding user behaviors and needs We still call it the intranet. So I think that has the potential to be a very influential piece of research in terms of where we’re going. And I know people in our circle are very, very excited to see that research. So I think we’ll be getting our teeth into it, and I suspect using it in member meetings, in some of our online webinars to really dig into where we’re going of intrInet.

[00:33:30.550] – Nancy Goebel

One of the other things that has just come to mind for me is, again, in conversations with members about the predictions, one of the things that I’ve talked about is that collaboration will change. Ai will certainly have an impact on supporting and enabling us to do that in more intelligent ways as we move forward. The thought that strikes me that the role of AI will influence digital workplace teams and leaders and how they go about their day, just like the wider workforce. I imagine that’ll get addressed in some fashion in the research, but I can’t help but build a bridge back to the work that you and the research team are doing and just pose the question, do you think AI will play a role in the research program itself this year?

[00:34:34.860] – Elizabeth Marsh

Well, yes, it’s a good question. We’re exploring different ways of using AI. Of course, you’ve done that in the podcast as well, which was very fascinating. At this stage, we’re particularly using something like complexity just to dabble and explore with finding different sources of information, finding case studies, and just using that to augment our own search processes, really, and reports are still written by humans, but in appropriate ways, we’re using them to just chip away at the things that we haven’t thought about, the different perspectives on this that we need to consider? Are there pieces of research that have been done that we haven’t really considered that we need to be? So it’s certainly starting to augment what we’re doing as a thinking tool. I I would say at this stage.

[00:35:31.770] – Nancy Goebel

And I guess the other side of the equation is, yes, AI is important in shaping some of the early thinking for the research program. But ultimately, DWG and the research program within that frame is very human-centered, high touch in how membership is delivered day-to-day. So I have to ask on behalf of our audience how organizations or individuals might get involved or benefit from the 2025 research program.

[00:36:08.550] – Elizabeth Marsh

Yes. So we always welcome input in a range of ways. So on one level, just hearing about the questions. As you’ve heard about those topics that we’re looking into, what are the questions that are on your mind? It could be about the direction of the Internet, about AI literacy, about making the business case? What What are the things that you think are the really difficult to address aspects of that? And then those questions really help our researchers think through these topics. Of course, we love case studies and examples of what organizations are doing. We love to feature those and celebrate those in our research and to explore in a safe way the learnings and the things that you might do differently that you might do next. And so that case study element is very, very integral to the way we do our research. And then also just the, what are your views around these topics? What are you thinking? What are you seeing? Have you come across particularly insightful sources. So we’re always open to those ways. And then, of course, within the membership, particularly, there are ways to interact with the research through research spotlights, which are online sessions where the researchers bring those topics into the light, and we have some pretty fascinating discussions around those.

[00:37:38.620] – Elizabeth Marsh

So there’s lots of different ways to interact with the program.

[00:37:43.440] – Nancy Goebel

I can’t believe we’re now in our final moment together. And so I guess it’s important to offer up a final window for any reflections or anything that we’ve missed and that you are hoping we’d cover as part of this conversation.

[00:38:01.610] – Elizabeth Marsh

I think we’ve covered it. What’s fascinating me throughout this discussion is how much it’s highlighted the interconnections between those topics and that weaving back and forth between the really human elements between data-driven decision-making, the business case, the way that technology is changing, and the way that we can navigate that as user in a user-centric way as possible, and that interconnection between the way that digital workplace teams are evolving, the roles are evolving and becoming more and more important and more strategically important as also the workforce is evolving and needing that greater change agility, something that you highlighted. So I feel almost perhaps more strongly than before, that real interconnection between the reports And as I’m briefing different research authors this year, I think we’re going to be drawing out those linkages. And we’ll be very interested at the end, the way that we can perhaps draw those together, maybe in some of our meetings in some of the sessions that we’re running into. It’s almost a playbook for the time that we’re in for digital workplace teams.

[00:39:27.460] – Nancy Goebel

Well, I think that’s a perfect place to pause and to say thank you for coming into the studio today to share all things DWG research program 2025. It’s always wonderful to catch up with you, just as I said at the start. I feel that this conversation was not only an exploration of connection, but also an opportunity to see storytelling in action and how you’ve helped all of us understand where the DWG research program fits in to the bigger picture and I know that our audience will follow with interest as the program unveils not only in concept, but in practice, and the research authors is working with you, publish each of the six reports. And so hopefully, there’ll be opportunities for us to come back into the studio and check in later in the year. But in the meantime, thank you for stepping out of your day to come and share a powerful story with us.

[00:40:48.720] – Elizabeth Marsh

Thank you, Nancy. You put it all so brilliantly, and it’s a real pleasure to share this preview and explore some of those topics. And I hope that you’re your audience, your listeners feel that they can get in touch and get involved with the research because it is very much a living research program, and those inputs always make it richer, and that there are opportunities to… You can get bite-sized pieces of that in blog posts and downloading some of our free research as well. So great to see you.

[00:41:25.810] – Nancy Goebel

Digital Workplace Impact is brought to you by the Digital Workplace Group. DWG is a strategic partner covering all aspects of the evolving digital workplace industry and boutique consulting services. For more information, visit digitalworkplacegroup.com.