How the digital HQ is changing work, for the better

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum.

Author: Cal Henderson, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Slack

• Post-pandemic presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink and reshape everything about how we work.
• Digital-first is and will be a key foundation for most successful businesses going forward, and the acceleration is nothing short of a transformation.
• The digital HQ can bring everyone, from employees to partners and customers, together in one place, with the data and app integration needed indifferent to physical location.

Channel-based messaging proved a solution to many office challenges pre-pandemic – from siloes and security issues to productivity and a feeling of belonging at work. But even at Slack, where we created channel-based messaging, we were slow to understand the power of this tool for remote and distributed work. It was less than two years ago that I thought that offices were necessary for maximum productivity. It can be hard for some people to hear and embrace, but workers and companies around the world have proven this to be false.

When Slack moved everyone out of our offices in March 2020, we didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t have any answers – and today, we still don’t have most of the answers. We have been part of the global experiment like everyone else. But part of this learning journey has led to a more productive and innovative company. It’s no longer up for debate that digital-first is and will be a key foundation for most successful businesses going forward, and the acceleration is nothing short of a transformation. In short, the digital HQ is now the most important HQ.

Bringing teams closer together in the digital HQ

The pandemic began two years ago, but represents decades of progress. Just as we don’t need to hurry back to where we came from, we don’t need to rush forward. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink and reshape everything about how we work.

Here’s how I see it: we used to spend an enormous amount of time and energy on our physical infrastructure. Collaborative shared spaces will still play a role in the future, but most of the time we used to spend on our physical infrastructure should be spent on our digital HQ — the tools that help us do work in a more effortless way, giving space for the messy and creative work unique to humans. At Slack, we’ve been trying to bring our team closer together in the digital HQ while we move farther apart physically. When done right, the digital HQ can bring everyone, from employees to partners and customers, together in one place, with the data and app integration needed indifferent to physical location.

The digital HQ can help us create an organization where employees want, not need, to show up to work – by infusing culture and all the things that make an organization a great place to work, right into the digital space. This is even more vital in the era of the great resignation as one in four UK workers are planning to change jobs. People’s lives have changed in the last two years – we can’t ask them to snap back to the physical-default. Flexibility will win more diverse talent, with fewer commutes, more employee time and less burnout.

So how do we build an effective digital HQ? A few best practices can go a long way:

• Announcement channels: Speaking directly to employees to keep them in the loop – removing the risk of misinterpretation and dilution through management layers.
• Custom status and emoji: A great way to either passively keep people updated on your status (e.g. if you’ve needed to go pick the kids up or drop by the pharmacy) and to react efficiently to messages (like a thumbs up emoji to signify agreement, or checkmark for completion).
• Moving meetings into the channel: It’s probably safe to say most people waste at least a few hours a week on unnecessary meetings. In aggregate, that’s a breathtaking amount of time. Enabling more asynchronous work has a key benefit of the digital HQ, meaning more of our communication can be text, voice or video based, while being decoupled from being in a certain place (or on a certain call) at a specific time.

One recent example I love of a company who has pivoted into a new way to work is Man Group,a global investment firm created before the cotton gin or the bicycle, which recently went fully remote. Its leadership quickly transitioned a 1,400-member workforce across 19 offices around the world, rolling out remote-working technologies in less than two weeks. The benefits have been greater scalability, security, and breaking down silos by bringing work into more visible and collaborative channels. The result has been a more productive digital HQ, and more productive company – without sacrificing security.

We’ve never been more optimistic about the future of work. We’re breaking free from old habits and testing ourselves in the best way I know of – during these moments of disruption. The most successful businesses in the future will be the ones that invest now in this thoughtful digital transformation.