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Hi there everyone,

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My name's Brad Rook,
and I am a senior solutions

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consultant with the customer experience
team here at Igloo Software.

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And I have the pleasure of helping people
be really wildly successful

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with their digital workplace.

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That's my role.

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That's my job.

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And I'd like to welcome you

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to today's session
on the evolution of the community manager.

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Through today's session,
we're going to look at the evolution

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of the community manager
as a functional role

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within the corporate structure.

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It's a role that's evolved
as the way we work has evolved

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and will continue to evolve
as we do moving forward.

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But first, let's get into a little level
setting.

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Let's talk
first about your digital workplace

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it's a digital representation
of your organization as igloos.

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CEO Mike Burrough once put it,

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organizations should take as much pride
in their digital workplace as they do.

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The lobby of their physical headquarters.

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That's a big statement.

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That pride should be evident
in the creation and management

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of an impactful,
engaging and useful community

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and the community manager's role
is to architect that, to support it,

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and to ensure others are enabled
to support them in these tasks.

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So looking at the slide,
I've asked the question,

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Who is your community manager?

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And that's what we're going to talk about
today.

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We're going to look at that evolution,
who that person was

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and who it should be now,
because certainly we've got some ideals

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that we were aspiring to,
but it hasn't always been this way.

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So let's talk about
a little bit of history first.

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So looking at kind of that
pre 20, 20 period, what we see

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first off is the digital workplace

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is mission essential,
but it's not yet mission critical.

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It was a nice to have, but the in-office
component that we didn't have that

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total reliance on digital tools,
we still had those in-person interactions

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and physical documentation to augment
that experience to back things up.

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And as a result, the digital workplace,
as I mentioned, it was a nice to have

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it didn't necessarily represent the full
employee experience in the workplace.

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That digital workplace was maintained
by a digital workplace manager,

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but that was rarely a dedicated position
it was even more rarely a community

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or group.

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This individual or people

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or committee often had competing
priorities within the organization

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if there was a committee or group,
the focus might be spread across

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several business areas,
not just that of the digital workplace.

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So there wasn't as much maybe laser
focus on the digital workplaces

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as might have been ideal.
As we'd like to see.

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The digital workplace itself
might have faced the entire company,

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but usually it sat within the siloed part
of the organization like h.R.

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Admin or i.t.

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This limited scope meant that
some of the areas of the organization

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might be underrepresented
if they were represented at all

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within the digital workplace.

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Not everybody saw the physical
manifestation of the digital workplace.

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We also had a more singular focus
on a singular corporate goal or purpose

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it might be used for communications,
it might be used for knowledge management,

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but other aspects might live
elsewhere, again, being backed up by a lot

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of those physical realities
that we had in the physical office.

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So that's the way things were.

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We had kind of a decentralized model
and looking at the digital workplace and,

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and maybe a person or a group
that might have had part of their focus

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being the digital workplace,
but rarely that that that dedication.

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So what happened next?

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Well, I think we know moving forward

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20, 20 hit and the digital workplace

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almost overnight went from mission
essential to mission critical.

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Everyone suddenly needed all the things.

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And there's that shift to work from home

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made in office conversations and resource
finding a rare element.

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We saw that happen.

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We also saw a really great reliance
on digital tools

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and I mean great in the sense of scope,
not great thumbs up

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because we saw a spread
of the digital ecosystem.

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This created a lot of digital noise
and a fracturing of informational chains

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as employees started to rely more
on applications of their choosing.

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This presented a security risk
to an organization as well, not just that

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fracturing of the organizational change

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depending on the application
was being used.

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So we saw some security risks coming in,
but moreover, we saw knowledge

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being dispersed
to a lot of these self-serve applications.

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A lot of employees were starting
to bring into the ecosystem

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through their cell phones, through
their home networks, that sort of thing.

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But yet the digital workplace became
or becomes

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a central hub for the corporation

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pretty much overnight, with the focus on
now on the organization as a whole,

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the purpose of the digital workplace
has changed,

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and with that increased profile,
we start to see increased challenges

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the digital workplace manager
becomes very, very important very quickly,

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and they often get overwhelmed

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by the demands for requests
being made at the position.

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We see a spread of the digital workplace
pages, spaces and channels being created

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at volume four for myriad purposes,
but often for those under-represented

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aspects of the organization
which now don't have a digital home yet.

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Everyone wants, as it says on the slide,
everyone needs, everyone wants

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all the things new departments
want a piece of the digital workplace.

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We've got that digital spread
but we also see with that engagement

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challenges.

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We saw huge engagement
at the beginning of the pandemic period.

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We saw obvious upticks in communications
in collaboration, knowledge management,

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that sort of things, things
you would expect.

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But we also saw a huge social aspect.

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This is that personal
touch was taken out of the office

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and people tried to make up for that
with with photos of their new workplaces,

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with photos of their new work companions
in the forms of pets, spouses, children,

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that sort of thing.

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And a lot of sharing that took place
in kind of that first month,

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60 days of the pandemic period.

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But then just as quickly
we saw a drop off.

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So now organizations have started
paying attention

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to their digital workplaces
and how things are performing.

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And we've got a huge spike
followed by a huge drop off.

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So the digital workplace

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manager is seeing challenges
along the lines of justification.

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How do we deal with that digital burnout?

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How do we keep the digital workplace
engaging and purpose suited

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throughout this period?

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So keeping the digital workplace relevant

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during the pandemic and beyond has become
that challenge, that focus.

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And we start to see with that
an emergence of new elements as well,

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requiring a new way of looking at things
new relationships, new contributions.

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We saw diversity, equity and inclusion
take off, and rightfully

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so during this period.

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We saw those representations starting
to be built into the digital workplace.

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We saw that representation
I mentioned with the quote off

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the start of the corporate lobby

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This is your physical headquarters
manifested into a digital environment.

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We start to see a lot of resources
being built out, things like wellness

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centers, really helping employees resource
and deal with the new reality of work.

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And we start to see these things
being created en masse.

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These are new focuses
for the digital workplace,

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and consequently
the position of the digital workplace

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manager has now become one of much greater
focus in some cases.

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Digital workplace managers,
as I mentioned, became overwhelmed, but

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this was also a time of great growth
and renewed focus.

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We started to see things like creation
of governance committees to help

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really monitor what was being created in
what was going into the digital workplace,

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but also monitor what was going out
that output, what was being communicated

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to the employees and what digital
workplaces were being used for.

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We saw resources being allocated
more than ever

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before to the digital workplace
manager, sub administrators,

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content creators, resources
from other departments.

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We saw the realization of the digital
workplace manager as a dedicated position,

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and the digital employee experience
is a key driver for the organization.

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And overall we saw an understanding
of the place, the digital workplace

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within the organization,
within that corporate structure.

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So moving to today and looking beyond
what have we learned?

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Well, first off, we see customers are more
advanced on the maturity scale.

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They're building on the lessons they
learned during the previous few years.

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We're seeing the community manager

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as a dedicated position
with supporting resources.

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We're seeing more of an emergence
of steering committees,

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of which the digital workplace
manager is an important part.

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We're seeing challenges
somewhat with the stop

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start with back
to work, with hybrid, with work from home.

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We're seeing
essentially more workforce spread

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and that's changing somewhat the focus
of the digital workplace, but making it

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no less critical, the idea that people
can work from anywhere in a lot of cases.

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So we've still got now
multiple dispersed employees

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that are needing
to have that central focus where

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that source of truth
where they get their information.

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So the digital workplace manager
has seen that elevation in in importance

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and they're starting to see things
like champions, sub administrators,

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as I mentioned, co-managers
content creators to help with the load.

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They're not just an entity of one
or a small committee

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this is starting to branch out.

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And the digital workplace manager is a
very important focal point in that spread.

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We're seeing significant contributions
continue from other departments,

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but we're not just opening the door.

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We're having these committees in place
to ensure

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that just because we build
it doesn't mean they'll come.

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We want an embracing of strategy
and justifying the space

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allocated, not just saying that, OK,
well, you need it.

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We're going to build it.

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So we're seeing some backing
for the digital workplace manager

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in controlling that
spread of the digital workplace.

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We're also seeing a rise of digital
employee experience

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and content strategist roles.

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We're starting to see
some of these specialist roles take off.

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And what that's leading to

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is that if I were going to write
a digital workplace manager job

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description now, it would have
significantly changed from something.

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I would have written last year
or a couple of years ago.

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Bottom line, the digital workplace manager
should be a dedicated position

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within the organization
with the appropriate supports in place

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to ensure the digital workplace
achieves its purpose

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within the organization,
supporting the digital employee experience

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and creating that
lasting impact for the organization.

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So circling back to the question,
who is your community manager?

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If I'd asked that a while back,

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the answer might have been very different
as we explored your digital workplace.

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Your community is a critical part
of your organization.

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It needs the resource allocation
to ensure it realizes its potential

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and serves the organization
as well as it possibly can.

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Your community manager
should be a dedicated role with supports

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and processes in place to ensure the
community is well maintained, relevant.

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And as I mentioned, impactful.

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So with that in mind, we've added
some resources to this package,

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including a draft of a digital workplace
manager job description,

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a candidate competency matrix highlighting

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the traditional roles
best suited to become community managers.

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We've attached a planning workbook

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to help align the role to the realities
of your digital workplace.

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And finally,
we've attached a resource matrix.

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So there's a lot of good stuff in this
package and I hope you'll find it useful.

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As always, folks,

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if you have questions, please
reach out to us here at Igloo Software.

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This is what we do.

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Digital workplaces are our game.

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We are very, very happy to help
and we hope to hear from you.

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Until then, folks, take care.

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And as I like to say, igloo on.