social workforce collaboration

Workforce Collaboration and Web 2.0 Improving Productivity by Facilitating Knowledge Transfer

June 2008

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Workforce Collaboration and Web 2.0

© 2008 Aberdeen Group.

Executive Summary Research Benchmark

Aberdeen’s Research Benchmarks provide an in-depth and comprehensive look into process, procedure, methodologies, and technologies with best practice identification and actionable recommendations

The need to respond quickly to market changes and the proliferation of a geographically dispersed workforce are driving organizations to prioritize workforce collaboration. Workforce collaboration continues to center primarily around project-based work. However, the onset of Web 2.0 software tools - together with the continuing need to improve workforce productivity, and the growing criticality to capture institutional knowledge before it leaves the organization - is forcing organizations to heighten the priority placed on workforce collaboration and broaden its application across the organization.

This report, a compilation of surveys and interviews with more than 270 organizations worldwide, serves as a roadmap for organizations that seek to maximize workforce collaboration and understand how Web 2.0 software tools can enhance collaboration efforts.

Best-in-Class Performance Aberdeen used four key performance criteria to distinguish Best-in-Class organizations with respect to their workforce collaboration efforts. Best-in-Class organizations:

"Workforce collaboration allows our workforce and related parties to discuss, share documentation, tasks and join forces across locations, departments, companies and hierarchy."

~ CEO, Small European-based Software Provider

• Reduced project time-to-completion on average by 34%

• Shortened time-to-resolution on average by 22%

• Improved new employee time-to-productivity on average by 19%

• Decreased training cost per employee on average by 14%

Competitive Maturity Assessment Survey results show that the firms enjoying Best-in-Class performance shared several common characteristics:

• 81% obtain support and buy-in from the organization’s senior leadership when seeking formal collaboration initiatives

• 78% implement training on the use of workforce collaboration software tools for all applicable workers

• 69% allow workers to submit new content into a shared knowledge base

Required Actions In addition to the specific recommendations in Chapter Three of this report, to achieve Best-in-Class performance, organizations must:

• Focus resources to capture and transfer organizational know-how

• Seek collaboration between IT, HR and line of business managers to ensure the appropriate technologies can be supported

• Educate key stakeholders on the anticipated value of workforce collaboration and communicate the value delivered

Telephone: 617 723 7890 www.aberdeen.com Fax: 617 723 7897



© 2008 Aberdeen Group. Telephone: 617 723 7890 www.aberdeen.com Fax: 617 723 7897

Table of Contents Executive Summary....................................................................................................... 2

Best-in-Class Performance..................................................................................... 2 Competitive Maturity Assessment....................................................................... 2 Required Actions...................................................................................................... 2

Chapter One: Benchmarking the Best-in-Class ..................................................... 4 Business Context ..................................................................................................... 4 The Maturity Class Framework............................................................................ 6 The Best-in-Class PACE Model ............................................................................ 6 Best-in-Class Strategies........................................................................................... 7

Chapter Two: Benchmarking Requirements for Success ..................................11 Competitive Assessment......................................................................................12 Capabilities and Enablers ......................................................................................13

Chapter Three: Required Actions .........................................................................18 Laggard Steps to Success......................................................................................18 Industry Average Steps to Success ....................................................................19 Best-in-Class Steps to Success ............................................................................19

Appendix A: Web 2.0 Terminology and Definitions .........................................21 Appendix B: Research Methodology .....................................................................23 Appendix C: Related Aberdeen Research ...........................................................25 Figures Figure 1: Top Pressures Driving Workforce Collaboration............................... 4 Figure 2: Top Challenges Organizations Seek to Overcome with Collaboration ................................................................................................................. 5 Figure 3: Top Strategies Pursued by Best-in-Class Organizations..................... 7 Figure 4: Top Internal Organizational Uses of Web 2.0 Tools .......................... 9 Figure 5: Integration of Web 2.0 Software Tools Across the Talent Management Value Chain ............................................................................................ 9 Figure 6: Satisfaction with Collaboration Efforts .................................................15 Figure 7: Best-in-Class Planned Adoption of Workforce Collaboration and Web 2.0 Software Tools ...........................................................................................16 Figure 8: Top Adoption Hurdles Cited by Best-in-Class...................................17 Tables Table 1: Top Performers Earn Best-in-Class Status.............................................. 6 Table 2: The Best-in-Class PACE Framework ....................................................... 7 Table 3: The Competitive Framework...................................................................12 Table 4: The PACE Framework Key ......................................................................24 Table 5: The Competitive Framework Key ..........................................................24 Table 6: The Relationship Between PACE and the Competitive Framework.........................................................................................................................................24


© 2008 Aberdeen Group. Telephone: 617 723 7890

Chapter One: Benchmarking the Best-in-Class

Business Context Fast Facts

√ 44% of organizations are forced pursue workforce collaboration as a result of the geographic dispersion of the workforce

√ 59% of organizations cite increasing workforce productivity as a challenge which collaboration tools are aimed to address

Charles Darwin once said, “In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” This mantra still applies to organizations in the 21st century.

Over the past twelve months, Aberdeen research from several benchmark studies pertaining to recruiting, onboarding, learning and development, and succession planning have showed strong planned growth in the use of workforce collaboration and social networking tools, ranging from 82% to 213%. This particular benchmark report, which represents a compilation of online survey and interviews with more than 270 organizations worldwide, focuses specifically on the pursuit, application and accomplishments of workforce collaboration initiatives, including the use of Web 2.0 software tools in these efforts.

Adaptability and Globalization Top Industry Pressures "Collaboration is having the ability for a global employee population to work together virtually both synchronously and asynchronously to complete work, design, or innovate to meet business objectives.”

~ General Manager - Training, Large US-based Computer

Hardware Provider

Organizations are living entities that are nurtured by the chemistry among all their employees and the output produced by this chemistry. They feed off the human capital which they have worked arduously to recruit, develop, and retain.

Today, these organizations are competing in a global market where agility and innovation are critical, and the ability to reach a geographically dispersed workforce is increasingly more common and crucial. In fact, these represent the top pressures cited by all organizations to focus resources on workforce collaboration (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Top Pressures Driving Workforce Collaboration

44% 43%38%

21%

0%

20%

40%

60%

Increasedglobalization and

geographicspread of the

enterprisew orkforce

Need to respondfaster to market

changes

Demand forinnovative

products andservices

Increasedcompetitivelandscape

Source: Aberdeen Group, June 2008

www.aberdeen.com Fax: 617 723 7897



Collaboration tools are intended to streamline communication among stakeholders. The quicker knowledge and intelligence travel within the enterprise, the more armed will the stakeholders be to respond to changing competitive and industry landscapes.

Increasing Productivity and Capturing Organizational Knowledge Every day, organizational leadership has to answer the question, “How can we get the most out of what we have?” Workforce productivity has always been a driving force behind investments in physical capital and technology – including workforce collaboration tools. However, an underlying challenge that is growing in importance, has implications across the entire talent management value chain, and has soared to the top of priorities for both human resources and line of business managers is "knowledge capture and transfer" (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Top Challenges Organizations Seek to Overcome with Collaboration

59% 56%

32% 30%

0%

20%

40%

60%

Workforceproductivity

Transferknow ledge

betw een andamong w orkers

Capture know ledgeof existing w orkers

Employeeengagement


Workforce Collaboration Defined To understand more completely the way people define "workforce collaboration", Aberdeen analyzed 250 written descriptions provided by those who took the online survey. Among all descriptions collected, a few clear consistencies emerged and provided the basis for the following definition: Workforce Collaboration is connecting employees and sharing knowledge to achieve identified goals. Connecting employees includes identifying people who are working towards a common end result and networking them with each other. Sharing knowledge includes capturing content and experiential data and distributing it when and where it is relevant.




The Maturity Class Framework Aberdeen used four key performance criteria to distinguish the Best-in-Class from Industry Average and Laggard organizations with respect to their differing degrees of success implementing workforce collaboration programs. These criteria focused on employee productivity and efficiency as well as strategic development through various phases of the employment lifecycle from onboarding new hires to developing them professionally while minimizing training costs:

1. Project plan time-to-completion "Workforce collaboration is the interaction of all necessary individuals to achieve a business objective.”

~ Director, Large US-based IT Services Company

2. Time-to-resolution (e.g. help desk support calls, HR inquiries)

3. Employee time-to-productivity

4. Cost of training per employee

Table 1: Top Performers Earn Best-in-Class Status

Definition of Maturity Class Mean Class Performance

Best-in-Class: Top 20% of

aggregate performance

scorers

Reduced project time-to-completion on average by 34% Shortened time-to-resolution on average by 22% Improved new employee time-to-productivity on

average by 19% Reduced training cost per employee on average by 14%

Industry Average:

Middle 50% of aggregate

performance scorers

Reduced project time-to-completion on average by 1% Shortened time-to-resolution on average by 5% Improved new employee time-to-productivity on

average by 6% Reduced training cost per employee on average by 3%

Laggard: Bottom 30% of

aggregate performance

scorers

Increased project time-to-completion on average by 2% Extended time-to-resolution on average by 5% Worsened new employee time-to-productivity on

average by 1% Increased training cost per employee on average by 2%


The Best-in-Class PACE Model In order to address the competitive pressures and internal organizational challenges driving workforce collaboration, Best-in-Class organizations adopt a mix of strategies, capabilities, and technologies. Combined, these enable their employees to network with colleagues as well as access content provided by others to ensure knowledge is captured and shared internally in a fashion that not only produces myriad operational efficiencies, but also reduces training expenses and the costs of adding and managing content.




Table 2: The Best-in-Class PACE Framework

Pressures Actions Capabilities Enablers Need to respond faster to market changes Increased globalization and geographic spread of the enterprise workforce

Capture internal knowledge, expertise, experience and make it available to others within the organization Reduce time it takes for workers to find relevant information Enable workers to communicate and/or collaborate via preferred modes

Support and buy-in from organization's senior leadership Availability of software tools that allow for workforce collaboration is communicated to all workers Training on the use of workforce collaboration software tools is available to all applicable workers Workers are able to submit new content into a shared knowledge base Multiple units within the business have ability to edit, modify and share content throughout the organization Workers can share and edit each other's documents/ spreadsheets in real-time IT is involved in decision making to ensure knowledge of what the enterprise can support

Calendar sharing File-sharing Web-conferencing Task management tools Web portal creation software Instant messaging (IM) Wikis Software that enables surveying / polling of the workforce Blogs Threaded discussion boards


Best-in-Class Strategies The top strategies pursued by Best-in-Class organizations to address these macro pressures and internal organizational challenges focus on capturing and transferring internal know-how, making relevant knowledge and information available to the entire organization, and distributing it efficiently (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Top Strategies Pursued by Best-in-Class Organizations

52%45% 42%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Capture internalknowledge, expertise,

experience and make itavailable to others

within the organization

Reduce time it takesfor workers to find

relevant information

Enable workers tocommunicate and/or

collaborate via preferredmodes





Fast Facts

Top 10 elements organizations associate with Web 2.0:

√ Blogs - 82%

√ Social networking - 77%

√ Wikis - 74%

√ Communities - 72%

√ Podcasts - 62%

√ Mash-ups - 59%

√ Forums - 59%

√ Social bookmarking - 59%

√ RSS Feeds - 59%

√ Social tagging - 58%

While no significant differentiators exist in terms of strategic actions pursued among the Best-in-Class, Industry Average and Laggard organizations, the ways via which Best-in-Class organizations support these strategies differ significantly. These variances, in relation to the business process competencies required to execute these strategies and the key technology enablers required to support the organization’s business practices, will be explored in detail in Chapter Two of this report. However, an element that requires specific reference and that is changing the way organizations view workforce collaboration is something coined "Web 2.0."

Web 2.0 and Workforce Collaboration Web 2.0 is term that many associate with workforce collaboration today, and Web 2.0-related software tools appear a likely solution to the aforementioned industry pressures and organizational challenges. Participants in this particular research study were asked what tools they associate with the term Web 2.0. The top five responses clearly showed that end-users associate Web 2.0 with collaboration and open knowledge sharing. The software tools that are mostly associated with the term Web 2.0 are blogs, social networking tools, communities and wikis. The top 10 elements that are associated with the term "Web 2.0" are listed in the sidebar on this page and are defined in Appendix A of this report.

Best-in-Class Use of Web 2.0 in Workforce Collaboration In carrying out the aforementioned strategies, we asked organizations to state how Web 2.0 tools are used within their organizations. It became clear that Best-in-Class organizations apply these tools both tactically and strategically.

Tactical vs. Strategic

√ Tactical refers to short-term objectives (i.e. increasing productivity, decreasing costs, etc…)

√ Strategic refers to long-term objectives (i.e. employee development, engagement, etc…)

Tactically: Web 2.0 software tools are used by Best-in-Class organizations to facilitate project-based team work. They are used to manage team calendars, project documents and milestones. In fact, 64% of Best-in-Class organizations cited “collaborating on project-based work” as the number one method for which collaboration tools are used.

Strategically: Four in ten Best-in-Class organizations currently utilize Web 2.0 software tools to connect workers with subject matter experts. This demonstrates that in addition to using these tools primarily for improving current output (such as that from project-based work), they are increasingly used to develop employees professionally by connecting them with subject matter experts. These experts will not only answer questions or address issues that employees face on a daily basis, but will also act as mentors or coaches who become involved in those employees’ learning and skill-acquisition process – even if informally – making them a more valuable assets to the organization in the long-run. This step will also prove invaluable during the onboarding process, where new employees are seeking socialization into the cultural fabric of their new employer. Indeed, the data shows (Figure 4) that Best-in-Class organizations are 69% more likely than all other organizations to use Web 2.0 tools to ensure workers are connected to subject matter experts.




Figure 4: Top Internal Organizational Uses of Web 2.0 Tools

64%

39%

50%

23%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Collaborating on project based w ork Connecting w orkers w ith subjectmatter experts

Best-in-Class Others


Web 2.0 and Talent Management Another strategic differentiator between Best-in-Class and all other organizations surveyed is the extent to which Web 2.0 software tools are utilized to enhance various elements of talent management. Figure 5 illustrates how Best-in-Class organizations are two and one-half to four and one-half times as likely as other organizations to use Web 2.0 software tools to augment and improve workforce recruitment, development and retention efforts.

"Providing a vehicle for collaboration, as a means of supporting the estimated 80% of informal learning, is a natural in view of our social human nature. It should be a requisite step of any high performance learning organization to support collaboration. We have assigned a single dedicated coordinator of communities of practice (COP) for a worldwide corporation of 4000. The popularity of COPs skyrocketed with the unforeseen result that just one person is insufficient to meet the demand."

~ Gil Peters Learning Technology Manager, Hitachi

Data Systems Academy

Figure 5: Integration of Web 2.0 Software Tools Across the Talent Management Value Chain

27%

7%

53%

50%48%45%

18%11%

17%

21%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Recruiting Onboarding Employeeperformancemanagement

Learning anddevelopment

Successionplanning

Best-in-Class All Others Source: Aberdeen Group, June 2008

Uses of Web 2.0 software tools in talent management are numerous. A few examples include:

• Recruiting. Web 2.0 software tools can help internal recruiters to connect with and stay connected to active and passive job prospects. For example, a blog can be utilized to post external messages from current employees in order to lend a voice to the market on what it's like to work at the company. Also, the use of




Web 2.0 tools in the pre-hire can enhance the organization's perceived employment brand among younger job candidates who grew up using this type of technology to communicate and socialize, and thus seek the same from their employers.

• Onboarding. Web 2.0 software tools can be used to connect new employees with those who can be critical to their success, including mentors and coaches. Social networks can facilitate the "socialization" of new employees into the organization's culture and help new employees to build and maintain networks and relationships with others throughout the organization. Additionally, Web 2.0 tools can be used as a means to extract "hidden" expertise by providing an arena for a new employee to provide commentary on a topic that is expert to him/her.

• Learning and development. Informal learning plays a critical role in an employee's professional development. Wikis, for example, can be used to stimulate peer-to-peer learning and ideation, as well as facilitate communities of practice in which organizations can leverage the collective knowledge of their employees.

Aberdeen Insight — Strategy

While most organizations are utilizing collaboration tools to impact short-term metrics such as productivity and efficiency, Best-in-Class organizations are more likely to focus on capturing institutional knowledge, expertise and experiences, codifying it, and making it available throughout the organization for myriad purposes. This is supported by the capabilities they have instituted that focus on generating and capturing content from their workforce and allowing others to access it and add to it. As the world becomes flatter and the demographics of the workforce continue to change, collaboration and knowledge sharing will continue to grow in importance and adoption. Consequently, we will see collaboration tools and Web 2.0 technology gain traction across talent management applications in areas like recruiting, onboarding, and employee development.

Performance prowess is merely an indicator of doing the right things. Productivity, efficiency and successful employee development are not solely the result of technology investments but are a result of sound strategies, processes and policies that encourage employees to be more collaborative and more engaged. While technology plays a critical role in creating a flatter organization where employees are connected to the right resources – both people and content – Best-in-Class organizations are instituting internal capabilities that maximize the return on investing in this technology. In the next chapter, we will reveal these organizational capabilities that distinguish Best-in-Class organizations from their peers in addition to the tools that they use to achieve performance gains.



Chapter Two: Benchmarking Requirements for Success

The ability to share files and documents real-time is critical to ensure the success of a project. Collaboration tools enable a geographically dispersed team that works on multiple projects simultaneously to achieve real business gains. This includes cutting costs, improving productivity, enhancing user experience, and increasing stakeholder satisfaction.

Case in Point — Comcast Spotlight

The Seattle & Spokane offices of Comcast Spotlight are the local advertising sales division of Comcast Cable in the area. Comcast Spotlight employs 3,500 people nationwide. The Seattle and Spokane branch has a video production team of 12 with collaboration occurring between it and 10 other teams totaling 105 video production employees. These teams produce television advertisements for businesses to be broadcasted locally. In order to produce these videos, these teams work with freelancers and clients. Therefore, each project requires collaboration among three primary stakeholders: the Comcast Spotlight teams, vendors (freelance camera crews and graphic artists), and the business clients.

The main objectives behind adopting a file-sharing solution were improving project-based teamwork, fostering stakeholder participation and facilitating sharing documents among the project team. The challenge was enhancing communication with vendors/freelancers and clients, especially when sharing large files. The previous system - FTP - was difficult to use, sometimes inaccessible, and provided an inferior user interface.

The one hurdle was getting acceptance from the IT department. As the solution is software as a service and purchased on a per user basis, the management of the video production team didn’t require buy-in or approval from other divisions.

The only requirement from IT was to implement the secure version of HTTP (HTTPS). However, after adopting the solutions, IT came on-board when they saw the decrease in complaints, and the cost benefits achieved. Marketing is currently experimenting with a project team page of their own. The video production team ensured access for their team, the vendors and the clients to the training video provided by the solution provider.

Adopting the collaboration solution had both real cost savings and intangible gains. In terms of cost saved, the production team was able to save 50% of the cost charged by the FTP provider. In addition, they incurred no premiums on moving files and documents on the FTP server or on uploading large files. Essentially, they received 23 times the storage for half the price.

continued

Fast Facts

√ 88% of Best-in-Class organizations indicate that "workforce collaboration" is a "top" or "high" priority - versus 52% of all other organizations

√ In comparison to 34% of all other organizations, 83% of Best-in-Class place "top" or "high" priority on the use of Web 2.0 software tools as a means to enhance workforce collaboration




Case in Point — Comcast Spotlight

Furthermore, the system increased participation rate and user satisfaction, which led to productivity gains. The quantity of complaints with the old system dropped drastically. Another benefit is that the solution allowed branding. Comcast Spotlight had the ability to put their logo and messaging on the external facing page. Lastly, viewing files (documents and videos) has become seamless to the client as they can click a link and see their produced advertisements without having to navigate through the directory trees of the FTP site.

In short, adopting a collaboration solution not only provided real cost savings for Comcast Spotlight – Seattle & Spokane branch, but increased overall satisfaction of all stakeholders, increase participation and productivity – all while reducing system complaints.

Competitive Assessment Aberdeen Group analyzed the aggregated metrics of surveyed organizations to determine whether their performance ranked as Best-in-Class, Industry Average, or Laggard. In addition to having common performance levels, each class also shared characteristics in five key categories: (1) process (the approaches they take to execute their daily operations); (2) organization (corporate focus and collaboration among stakeholders); (3) knowledge management (contextualizing data and exposing it to key stakeholders); (4) technology (the selection of appropriate tools and effective deployment of those tools); and (5) performance management (the ability of the organization to measure their results to improve their business). These characteristics (identified in Table 3) serve as a guideline for best practices, and correlate directly with Best-in-Class performance across the key metrics.

Table 3: The Competitive Framework

Best-in-Class Average Laggards Multiple units within the business have ability to edit, modify and share content throughout the organization Process

69% 36% 25%

Availability of software tools that allow for workforce collaboration is communicated to all workers

81% 41% 28%

Support and buy-in from organization’s senior leadership

84% 51%


32%

Training on the use of workforce collaboration software tools is available to all applicable workers

Organization

78% 32% 20%

"Our challenge was facilitating communication with our vendors and clients with large files. FTP was hard to use, problematic and clunky. Our own hurdles are merely getting acceptance for it with the IT department.”

~ Darren LaMarr, West Division Production Lead,

Creative Services Manager, Comcast Spotlight in Seattle &

Spokane



Best-in-Class Average Laggards Workers are able to submit new content into a shared knowledge base

69% 41% 31% Workers can share and edit each other's documents/ spreadsheets in real-time

66% 38% 30% Workers can search and connect with workers across the organization irrespective of business unit or geography

Knowledge

69% 44% 36% The following collaboration and Web 2.0 tools are used:

Technology

94% Calendar sharing

81% File-sharing tools

78% Web-conferencing software

78% Task management tools (for project-based teamwork)

75% Web portal creation software

72% Wikis 72% Software that enables surveying / polling of the workforce

66% Blogs







30% Blogs







30% Blogs Additional metrics currently used or planned to track the performance of collaboration investments include:

Performance 77% employee engagement

72% cost to develop and deliver training content

60% employee engagement


46% employee engagement



Capabilities and Enablers Implementing a successful program that fosters workforce collaboration requires the proper mix of process, organizational knowledge, technology, and performance management.

Process Best-in-Class organizations are 92% more likely than the Industry Average and almost three times as likely as Laggard organizations to have a process



that enables multiple units within the business to edit, modify and share content throughout the organization.

Fast Facts

√ 66% of Best-in-Class organizations involve IT in the workforce collaboration technology decision making to ensure knowledge of what the enterprise can support

√ 63% of Best-in-Class organizations align IT with line of business managers to determine what can technology can work best to address business needs

Best-in-Class organizations realize that collaboration and knowledge sharing must not be reserved to one department or business unit. Many organizations are matrix-structured where project teams consist of resources that span multiple business units. In these types of organizations, it is essential to have a process that allows workers access to relevant documents and calendars. It is equally essential to ensure that workers have the appropriate permissions as well. Certain team members may have the ability to review and edit content, while others require permission to only read it. In another instance, if a company has multiple sales units - such as internal sales, field sales, or major accounts) - then allowing the different units the ability to share experiences and knowledge will prove critical in enhancing the overall performance of the group. An approach that worked for the field sales team may very well be applicable to the internal sales team.

Organization More than eight of ten Best-in-Class organizations have gained senior-level support and buy-in pertaining to workforce collaboration initiatives - as compared to only 44% of all other organizations. The importance of this support is reinforced by the fact that, at 45% of Best-in-Class organizations, the person championing the utilization of Web 2.0 software tools is the organization's CEO.

Additionally, Best-in-Class organizations are more than twice as likely as all other organizations to communicate to the workforce the availability of collaboration software tools. Just making these tools available is not sufficient. It is equally important to communicate to the workforce what the tools are, how they can be used strategically in their professional development or tactically to address immediate needs, as well as how they've been utilized to address specific business problems and produce desired results. In addition to communicating the availability and impact of workforce collaboration tools, Best-in-Class organizations are nearly three times as likely as all other organizations to provide training on their use.

These capabilities enable Best-in-Class organizations to maximize the benefits realized from collaboration technologies and increase user satisfaction. Not surprisingly, Best-in-Class organizations are 79% more likely than Industry Average and almost three times as likely as Laggard organizations to be satisfied with their workforce collaboration efforts.




Figure 6: Satisfaction with Collaboration Efforts

84%

6%

47%

31%29%

49%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Satisfied Dissatisf ied

Best-in-Class Average Laggard


Knowledge Management Collaboration works best if all the parties are able to connect and share knowledge irrespective of geography. From a "knowledge" perspective, content must be managed in a way that makes it accessible and keeps it organized. For two thirds of Best-in-Class, a key factor is the employees' ability to submit new content into a shared knowledge repository. Best-in-Class organizations are 86% more likely than all others to provide this capability. Moreover, storing company generated content and user generated content in the same repository allows employees to add material to or comment on training videos, presentations and other exercises, which will enable the company to continuously improve its practices making it a more adaptable learning organization.

"The biggest hurdle was driving a new thought process while embarking on a project or determining which data to capture and how to organize it.”

~ Cory Kruse, VP of Talent Acquisition, Novotus

From a "people" perspective, Best-in-Class organizations begin by ensuring that employees are able to find and access each other - and are 68% more likely than all other organizations to have such a capability. This reaffirms their use of collaboration strategically to connect workers to mentors and subject matter experts. This capability, in addition to a shared content repository, is vital to facilitate project-based teamwork.

Technology As outlined in Table 3, the application and use of software tools among Best-in-Class organizations to facilitate and enhance workforce collaboration is much broader and deeper than it is at all other organizations:

• 75% or more of Best-in-Class organizations currently use software that centers around file sharing, document sharing, and application sharing. These solutions enable more effective and efficient collaborative projects and training. While these technologies also represent those most utilized by Industry Average and Laggard organizations, they are in use at only 40% to 66% of these combined groups.

• Another subset of software tools utilized by the majority of Best-in-Class organizations includes those most commonly associated with the term "Web 2.0". Web 2.0 applications in workforce




collaboration have been gaining traction in both awareness and adoption, however, are currently utilized by only 25% to 35% of Industry Average and Laggard organizations.

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Best-in-Class organizations are budgeted to invest in collaboration tools over the next 12 months - whether to develop in-house or to acquire from external providers. Another 18% have gained executive buy-in but are still waiting on budgetary approval. Figure 5 illustrates the workforce collaboration and Web 2.0 software tools that will experience the greatest adoption over the next 12 month.

Figure 7: Best-in-Class Planned Adoption of Workforce Collaboration and Web 2.0 Software Tools

28%

35%

25%

44%

47%

53%

38%

48%

59%

50%

47%

44%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Tools that automatically generate and manage aclear picture of a person's expertise

Software that proactively brings relevant contentto the attention of each worker

Software that enables “mash-ups” (mergingcontent from different sources)

Tools for faster onboarding of new employees

Software that enables capture of organizationalknowledge into discoverable knowledge bases

"Search" technology that allows workers to findrelevant content quickly and easily

Best-in-Class (current) Best-in-Class (planned) Source: Aberdeen Group, June 2008

As the adoption trends above illustrate, there is an a clear shift by all organizations to begin looking at workforce collaboration and Web 2.0 tools to connect people, generate content, capture knowledge and make it easily accessible. This will enable them to go beyond productivity, efficiency, and cost-savings. They will become more adept at recruiting talent, onboarding new workers, self-educating the workforce (peer-to-peer learning), identifying hidden talent, and assigning appropriate development paths or succession plans. Therefore, not only these tools will address business problems, but they will help ensure business continuity.

Performance Management Best-in-Class organizations are more than one and one-half times more likely than all other organizations to have clearly defined the correlation between the use of workforce collaboration tools and specific organizational objectives. This, in turn, provides the basis for the metrics that Best-in-Class assign to the value of workforce collaboration initiatives. In addition to the four metrics used to develop the maturity class framework in Table 1,




Aberdeen's research revealed two additional metrics most commonly measured (or planned to be measured) by Best-in-Class organizations:

• Employee Engagement – 77% • Cost to develop and deliver training content – 72%

The Best-in-Class metrics show that Best-in-Class organizations have a tactical focus (cost orientation) and a strategic focus (development orientation) when it comes to workforce collaboration applications.

Aberdeen Insights — Technology

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Best-in-Class organizations attribute their ability to improve performance in the metrics used for this benchmark study directly to their use of workforce collaboration and Web 2.0 software tools. However, success didn't happen overnight. Among Best-in-Class organizations, the predominant organizational hurdle that needed to be overcome to gain greater acceptance for the use of Web 2.0 software tools for workforce collaboration was the perception that Web 2.0 software would distract workers from their jobs and lower their productivity (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Top Adoption Hurdles Cited by Best-in-Class

26%

26%

29%

29%

42%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Lack of internal expertise or personnelresources to manage and support

w orkforce collaboration tool

Inability to assign real business value tothe use of Web 2.0 softw are

Cost of Web 2.0 softw are solutions isprohibitive

Cultural resistance (“w hy change w hatisn’t broke?”)

Perception that use of Web 2.0 softw aredistracts w orkers from their jobs and

low ers productivity


The organizational hurdles highlighted above provide evidence of the need for organizations to test Web 2.0 tools, especially in smaller workforce populations in order to prove appropriate business usage of these tools and confirm real business value as a result of their use. Once business value can be assigned and is promoted to key organizational stakeholders, misperceptions can be minimized and organizational support can be established.




Chapter Three: Required Actions

Whether a company is trying to move its performance from Laggard to Industry Average, or Industry Average to Best-in-Class, the following actions will help spur the necessary performance improvements:

Laggard Steps to Success "I think that workforce collaboration has two faces. The first is real-time sharing of work products in a way that allows team members to interact in order to accomplish a task. Related is the second face, where the work is done asynchronously. Both require systems that allow for sharing, storage, retrieval, tracking, and annotation.”

~ Director, Bluenog Corp.

• Seek support and buy-in from senior leadership. Currently, slightly less than one third of Laggard organizations (32%) have gained this critical buy-in - as compared to 51% of Industry Average and 84% of Best-in-Class organizations. Whether on the departmental level or corporate level, organizations must ensure that senior leadership has subscribed to the business case. This, in turn, forces two key elements: 1) To gain this buy-in, a solid business case must be presented - this discipline will provide the basis for future success; 2) When managers and executives embrace collaboration initiatives, the rate of adoption among employees in lower levels will increase.

• Involve line of business managers and IT. Less than one-third of Laggard organizations involve these critical stakeholders in the process to determine which collaboration / Web 2.0 technologies will best address the business' specific needs and whether the enterprise can support the technology. Collaboration with line of business managers and IT will also aid in defining the key performance indicators that will be utilized to gauge the success of the particular project or application.

• Automate - start small, then expand. Begin by addressing an isolated business or project pain point. Software tools that allow for sharing of calendars, documents and applications have been adopted by at least 61% of Industry Average organizations and by at least 78% of Best-in-Class and may be able to address an immediate tactical need at your organization and, in many cases, can be accessed in a hosted of software-as-a-service model - which may please IT and allow for more immediate use.

• Communicate the availability of collaboration tools and train on their use. Twenty-eight percent (28%) of Laggards currently communicate the availability of workforce collaboration tools to all their workers, and only a fifth of them train their employees on using these tools. Unless employees are aware of collaboration tools and are adequately trained on using them, utilization of these software tools will be drastically low. Lack of adoption and utilization may cause organizations to lose confidence in their technology investments as they won’t be able to determine its ROI.




Industry Average Steps to Success • Use collaboration strategically and communicate all

successes. While 53% of Industry Average organizations are applying collaboration tools to enhance project teamwork, only 22% are using to connect employees to subject matter experts. Comparatively, 40% of Best-in-Class organizations are doing so. Industry Average organizations must begin to look towards collaboration and Web 2.0 tools more strategically within talent management and then apply them to programs such as onboarding, employee development, and succession planning. This will enable them to track their top performers, use as them coaches, and keep them in their leadership pipeline.

• Enable workers to search and connect with colleagues across business units and geographies. Only 44% of Industry Average organizations have this capability in place. Collaboration works best if employees are able to identify employees who share common personal and professional interests. This allows them to easily identify subject matter experts and to complete their tasks more efficiently making them more productive.

• Allow multiple units within the organization the ability to edit, modify, and share content. Whereas 69% of Best-in-Class organizations provide this visibility and capability, only 36% of Industry Average organizations support this. This is especially effective in matrix organizations where a project team consists of several groups. For instance, a project might have sponsorship (i.e. funding) from three business lines in addition to a technology team that is creating the application. All four groups must be able to collaborate throughout the project lifecycle from creating a business case to writing and carrying out testing use cases. This will decrease the project's time-to-completion and will provide better visibility from a project management standpoint. Different permission levels can be set to control this aspect.

• Implement a shared knowledge repository. Forty-one percent (41%) of Aberdeen's Industry Average are currently storing content in a shared knowledge repository - as compared to 69% of Best-in-Class. Whether content is company generated or user generated, it is critical to ensure that it is easy to find, edit and modify. This helps organizations to better manage, track, and update it. Most importantly, it enables an organization to build on existing content via continuous improvement based on internal best practices.

Best-in-Class Steps to Success • Establish guidelines and communicate to all workers.

Currently, only four in ten Best-in-Class organizations have established "Proper Use" guidelines on the use of collaboration and Web 2.0 tools (i.e. content posting) and have communicated these



guidelines to their workforces. However, it's critical to highlight that all organizations that have these guidelines in place have achieved Aberdeen's Best-in-Class status. Clearly, this plays a role in attaining performance gains in productivity, project timelines, and efficiency.

• Track and report on the frequency of use. Approximately one-third of Best-in-Class organizations have a process in place to track and report on employee use of collaboration software tools. Organizations must be able to determine the frequency and application of the use of workforce collaboration and Web 2.0 software tools. This helps them identify who their top contributors are and enables them to deduce employee engagement based on how often workers are posting, editing, reading and commenting on content. It also allows them to curb improper use of these tools and ascertain they are being utilized as intended.

• Allow employees to rate content and the content source(s). Currently, only 34% of Best-in-Class allow this functionality. Allowing peers to rate each other and each other's content enables the organization to identify subject matter experts. Moreover, rating content such as work experiences and approaches provides the ability to uncover best practices for a department or a business unit. This enables companies to improve learning processes and training content.

Aberdeen Insights — Summary

Workforce collaboration is not a new concept. However, innovation has led to an evolution of tools that are allowing workers to improve productivity, facilitate project-based teamwork, and network with colleagues. File-sharing, application sharing, and calendar-sharing tools are currently most widely used. Nonetheless, "Web 2.0" technologies like social networks, wikis, blogs, web feeds, internal communities and discussion threads are gaining visible traction in awareness, acceptance and adoption. The pursuit of workforce collaboration will continue to gain momentum in terms of its application across the enterprise as well as its overall strategic importance to the organization.





Appendix A: Web 2.0 Terminology and Definitions

Blogs. Abridgement of Web Log. Allows an individual to write about a topic and allow others to view and comment online. Organizations use blogs to enable employees to share their experiences and highlight success stories. It allows colleagues to view the content and share their thoughts on the topic in the form of comments.

Communities. Also known as online communities are groups of people - in this case employees - who interact primarily via virtual means. This can be a team of people working on the same project, or a sales team working together on one deal. They can subscribe to the same content and opt to receive alerts when members of their community post new content or edit existing content.

Forums. Web applications for hosting discussions and user generated content. Members - in this case employees - can visit a particular forum to check for new content or participate in new discussion topics. Forums are usually moderated by an administrator to edit, delete, or modify threads on the forum.

Mash-ups. Web applications that combine content from different sources to produce an integrated tool. For instance, a group of employees can have a page that combines the project plan and news feeds on the client and the industry they compete in. For this example, content (project timeline and news) is usually updated by web feeds.

Podcasts. Digital media files that are distributed via the internet for playback on computers and mobile devices. The term comes from combining "broadcast" and "iPod" - Apple's portable media player. For instance, a company can utilize Podcasts to share success stories or distribute learning content.

RSS feeds. Family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts in a standardized format.

Social bookmarking. A method for internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the internet with the help of metadata (data describing other data). Many social bookmarking services provide web feeds for their lists of bookmarks, including lists organized by tags. This allows subscribers to become aware of new bookmarks as they are saved, shared, and tagged by other users.

Social networking. This technology enables people to find how they are connected to be people who are not necessarily within their direct network. For example, a person from the outside sales team is working on a deal with company X. He/she is trying to find a point of contact at that company, but doesn't know where to start. Social networking tools might help him/her find out that another colleague in sales has a contact in



marketing who used to work with another person who now is an employee of company X. This helps employees design a communication path to establish contact.

Social tagging. Also known as folksonomy, collaborative tagging, social classification, or social indexing. It is the method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content. In contrast to traditional subject indexing, metadata is generated not only by experts but also by creators and consumers of the content. Usually, freely chosen keywords are used instead of a controlled vocabulary.

Wikis. Web pages that allow communities of people to access, govern and contribute to topics of interest. Simple wikis allow title searches and more advanced wikis allow full text searches. In case of enterprise collaboration, wikis can be used by subject matter experts to collaborate on content enabling organizations to capture best practices that would be applied to improve output and productivity of others.



Appendix B: Research Methodology

Between May and June 2008, Aberdeen examined the use, the experiences, and the intentions of more than 270 organizations with respect to their internal workforce collaboration efforts.

Study Focus

Responding executives completed an online survey that included questions designed to determine the following:

√ The impact of workforce collaboration technology, if any, on project-based teamwork and knowledge sharing - especially in geographically dispersed teams

√ The processes and internal capabilities that enable Best-in-Class companies achieve performance gains

√ Current and planned collaboration and Web 2.0 technology adoption

√ The benefits if any, that have been derived from internal workforce collaboration initiatives

The study aimed to identify emerging best practices for fostering internal collaboration and knowledge sharing and to provide a framework by which readers could assess their own capabilities.

Aberdeen supplemented this online survey effort with telephone interviews with select survey respondents, gathering additional information on these programs, strategies, experiences, and results.

Responding enterprises included the following:

• Job title / function: The research sample included respondents with the following job titles: senior management (CEO, COO, CFO, CIO, CTO, president) (16%); vice president (VP, SVP, EVP, Partner) (6%); director / general manager (21%); manager (22%); others (35%). In terms of functions in their respective organization, the third of respondents were in human resources, talent management, learning and development; followed by sales and marketing (24%). IT (20%). Other functional areas represented include IT (20%), operations and business process improvement (9%).

• Industry: The research sample included respondents from a variety of industries. Telecom and IT (including software, hardware and services) represented a third of the sample. Finance/banking and real estate/legal services represented 12% of the sample, followed by education (6%) and government (4%).

• Geography: The majority of respondents (70%) were from North America. Remaining respondents were from Europe (20%), Asia-Pacific (7%), Middle East / Africa (2%), and South / Central America (1%).

• Company size: Thirty-four percent (34%) of respondents were from large enterprises (annual revenues above US$1 billion); 24% were from mid-sized enterprises (annual revenues between $50 million and $1 billion); 42% were from small businesses (annual revenues less than $50 million.

• Headcount: Thirty-nine percent (39%) of respondents had over 2500 employees; 6% had between 1000 and 2500 employees; 13% had between 250 and 1000 employees; 42% of respondents came from companies with less than 250 employees.

Solution providers recognized as sponsors were solicited after the fact and had no substantive influence on the direction of this report. Their sponsorship has made it possible for Aberdeen Group to make these findings available to readers at no charge.




Table 4: The PACE Framework Key

Overview Aberdeen applies a methodology to benchmark research that evaluates the business pressures, actions, capabilities, and enablers (PACE) that indicate corporate behavior in specific business processes. These terms are defined as follows: Pressures — external forces that impact an organization’s market position, competitiveness, or business operations (e.g., economic, political and regulatory, technology, changing customer preferences, competitive) Actions — the strategic approaches that an organization takes in response to industry pressures (e.g., align the corporate business model to leverage industry opportunities, such as product / service strategy, target markets, financial strategy, go-to-market, and sales strategy) Capabilities — the business process competencies required to execute corporate strategy (e.g., skilled people, brand, market positioning, viable products / services, ecosystem partners, financing) Enablers — the key functionality of technology solutions required to support the organization’s enabling business practices (e.g., development platform, applications, network connectivity, user interface, training and support, partner interfaces, data cleansing, and management)


Table 5: The Competitive Framework Key

Overview The Aberdeen Competitive Framework defines enterprises as falling into one of the following three levels of practices and performance: Best-in-Class (20%) — Practices that are the best currently being employed and are significantly superior to the Industry Average, and result in the top industry performance. Industry Average (50%) — Practices that represent the average or norm, and result in average industry performance. Laggards (30%) — Practices that are significantly behind the average of the industry, and result in below average performance.

In the following categories: Process — What is the scope of process standardization? What is the efficiency and effectiveness of this process? Organization — How is your company currently organized to manage and optimize this particular process? Knowledge — What visibility do you have into key data and intelligence required to manage this process? Technology — What level of automation have you used to support this process? How is this automation integrated and aligned? Performance — What do you measure? How frequently? What’s your actual performance?


Table 6: The Relationship Between PACE and the Competitive Framework

PACE and the Competitive Framework – How They Interact Aberdeen research indicates that companies that identify the most influential pressures and take the most transformational and effective actions are most likely to achieve superior performance. The level of competitive performance that a company achieves is strongly determined by the PACE choices that they make and how well they execute those decisions.





Appendix C: Related Aberdeen Research

Related Aberdeen research that forms a companion or reference to this report includes:

• Managing Employee Performance March 2008

• Human Capital Management Defined March 2008

• Best-in-Class Use of Metrics in Talent Management March 2008

• All Aboard:: Effective Onboarding Techniques and Strategies January 2008

• Learning and Development: Aligning Workforce with Business Objectives September 2007

• Integrated Human Capital Management: Over-hyped or Over-due? December 2007

• The Looming Leadership Void: Identifying, Developing, and Retaining Your Top Talent November 2007

Information on these and any other Aberdeen publications can be found at www.aberdeen.com

Authors: Kevin Martin, Research Director, Human Capital Management [email protected] Jayson Saba, Research Associate, Human Capital Management [email protected]

Since 1988, Aberdeen's research has been helping corporations worldwide become Best-in-Class. Having benchmarked the performance of more than 644,000 companies, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to provide organizations with the facts that matter — the facts that enable companies to get ahead and drive results. That's why our research is relied on by more than 2.2 million readers in over 40 countries, 90% of the Fortune 1,000, and 93% of the Technology 500.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information – Opportunity – Insight – Engagement – Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com

This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group. Aberdeen Group's methodologies provide for objective fact-based research and represent the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc. and may not be reproduced, distributed, archived, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent by Aberdeen Group, Inc.

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