Digital workplace manager

Spark Trajectory Intranet and Digital Workplace Roles and Teams > This role

What does the role Digital workplace manager do?

The Digital Workplace Manager is responsible for the strategy, governance, and ongoing development of the organisation's digital workplace platform; this is typically the Microsoft 365 suite and associated tools including the intranet, enterprise search, and collaboration applications. The role combines product ownership and platform governance with stakeholder management and adoption, and usually line-manages more specialist roles such as Content Manager, Search Manager, or Product Manager. It sits at the intersection of IT and the business, balancing technical platform management with the employee experience agenda.

Also known as

  • Digital employee experience manager
  • Modern workplace manager
  • Head of modern workplace
  • Employee technology manager
  • Head of digital employee experience
  • Director of digital workplace
  • Head of workplace technology
  • Collaboration platform manager
  • Digital tools manager
  • Workplace solutions manager
  • Digital adoption manager
Widespread prevalence

This role is often found in larger organisations

Primary responsibilties

  • Leads the strategy and vision for the organisation's digital workplace platform portfolio
  • Owns the roadmap for the intranet, Microsoft 365 tools, and associated collaboration platforms
  • Manages the day-to-day operation, configuration, and governance of the platform stack
  • Sets and maintains governance standards covering publishing, permissions, and acceptable use
  • Represents the digital workplace function at senior stakeholder and programme level
  • Coordinates adoption activities including training, communications, and champion programmes
  • Monitors platform analytics and drives continuous improvement to employee experience
  • Manages vendor relationships and tracks product roadmaps for key platforms
  • Line-manages specialist roles including Content Manager, Search Manager, and Product Manager

Related teams

We've known this role to be part of the following teams:
Digital Workplace Team

Skills profile

Note: This is what we documented as an exemplar. It's unlikely to always be the case and relates to a role's involvement with the delivery of digital employee experience and perhaps not everything they do. You can open this in the Skills Profile Builder if you want to customise it.

Apprentice

Limited but increasing capabilities based on learning and on-the-job experience, but guidance and mentoring is required to fulfil potential.

Practitioner

Good professional capabilities sufficient for many circumstances and roles. Able to guide and mentor apprentices.

Master

Abilities that are the best in the professional field, gained from significant experience. Able to teach and guide others in their development.
{"intranet-and-digital-workplace-strategy":3,"strategic-governance":3,"operational-governance":3,"product-management":3,"business-case-development":3,"stakeholder-management":3,"search-management":1,"project-and-programme-management":2,"incident-and-problem-management":3,"it-change-management":3,"platform-management":3,"business-analysis-and-requirements-specification":3,"it-strategy":2,"information-security":2,"risk-management":2}

Outline job description

The Digital Workplace Manager is responsible for the strategy, governance, and ongoing development of the organisation's digital workplace platform, which is typically Microsoft 365 and the associated tools that sit within it. It's a senior management role that combines product ownership with platform governance and sits at the intersection of IT and the business, balancing technical platform management with the employee experience agenda.

About the role

You'll lead the digital workplace function, own the platform portfolio roadmap, set governance standards, drive adoption, and manage a team of specialists. The role requires credibility with both IT leadership and senior business stakeholders, as well as the ability to move fluidly between a conversation about platform architecture and one about how employees experience their working day.

Most Digital Workplace Managers line-manage specialist roles including Content Manager, Search Manager, and Product Manager. The role typically reports into IT, Digital, or a Chief Operating Officer.

What you'll actually be doing

You'll be setting the direction for the digital workplace and making sure the day-to-day operation keeps pace with it. That means owning the roadmap and making the case for it internally, managing vendors as strategic partners, setting governance frameworks that keep the platform coherent as it evolves, and coordinating adoption activity so that technology investments actually change how people work.

You'll also be managing the team: developing specialist capabilities, creating the conditions for people to do good work, and representing the function at senior level. When something goes wrong at scale, you'll be the person accountable for the response.

What we're looking for

Senior experience in digital workplace management, ideally with Microsoft 365 or a comparable enterprise platform at scale. Strong platform governance credentials: you need to understand how to structure permissions, publishing rights, and configuration standards across a complex multi-application environment. Product management capability is central: this involves developing and defending a roadmap, prioritising against competing demands, managing vendors effectively, and sometimes meeting unexpected challenges.

You should be comfortable leading a specialist team, including people with deeper technical expertise than your own in specific domains.

Typical background

Most people in this role come from IT project management, digital workplace, or enterprise technology backgrounds, often having progressed through more specialist roles. Microsoft 365 and SharePoint experience is normally required. ITIL, Prince2, or equivalent qualifications are common.

Beyond all of the above, the Digital Workplace Manager will work closely with stakeholders and other product owners throughout the business, communicating strategy, building a consensus, and often aligning with a wider digital transformation agenda.

Download this outline job description

Download this as Markdown (for Notion), RTF (for Word) or Plain Text (for nerds and primitives).

Errors? Disagreements? Omissions?

We have hopefully created these exemplars with thought and care. It is not the only way of looking at these roles and teams in the world, and relates specifically to the intranet and digital workplance profession. It therefore concentrates on some things and ignores others.

If you find an error, disagree wholeheartly or feel there is a glaring ommission we'd love to know.

contact us

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

  • Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
  • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
  • Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
  • NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.