Reconstructing the Workplace: The Digital-ready Organization | Deloitte Insights

When one thinks of “the workplace,” visions of workers converging in a building, conference rooms, and cubicles are likely to emerge. However, as the pandemic continues to evolve this view of the workplace from merely a physical to a digital concept, this article notes how technology allows us to combine digital tools with physical space to create a modern digital workplace that uses the best capabilities of both. And while this 16-minute read has too many insights to summarize adequately, one guiding principle offered for how we work digitally is: rather than grouping workers by location, warehousing them in an office, we might group them by the problem they’re working to solve, such as launching a new product, optimizing a process. These teams work via digital tools and platforms, using physical places—the office, for instance—as necessary, but those places no longer define them. Stated differently, the needs of the work and the workers determine how physical space is used, rather than the physical space determining how the work is organized. Other ideas are discussed for how firms can “reconstruct” the workplace through a combination of digital and physical solutions.