Deloitte: How organisations can prepare for new look office work

Seamless remote and onsite work

In the report, Deloitte suggests that the office of the future will likely be infused with the same digital technologies and tools used in the remote workplace. The same capabilities that augment the digital workplace can similarly augment the physical workplace experience. 

According to Deloitte, organisational artificial intelligence (AI) can help teams to organise the time, data and location of in-office meetings to maximise the value of space and to promote team interactions.

“Nobody has bumped into each other this past year,” said Smith. “Previously there may have been a culture of being seen in the office, but this is not the case with more agile working.”

While watercooler moments and meetings in hallways have typically led to business benefits, Deloitte believes organisations will need to examine the return on investment (ROI) of office space more closely to maximise the benefit of team members collaborating and interacting in a less formal work environment.

Data collection is a key ingredient to understanding the digital workplace, according to Smith. “What are the positives are opportunities of a digital workplace? Can you make it more measurable and helpful for people? This is not about Big Brother, but about understanding interactions, connectivity and how information flows between teams.”

The Deloitte report suggests that by analysing the anonymised data collected on how workers are using tools and platforms while working from home, business leaders are in a better position to understand how to improve the employee experience, boost productivity and improve employee retention.

“As offices reopen, organisations will use this data to ensure workers work well from both remote and in-office spaces, to ensure thriving, productive and cost-effective operations,” said the report.

By using data to understand how behaviours in the digital workplace correlate to success, Deloitte argued that companies have an opportunity to improve work processes and create personalised employee experiences, which are analogous to the personalisation that customers of streaming music and video services receive.

Deloitte noted: “The most agile companies will investigate the patterns remote workers are encoding in data and use them to develop new ways of working.”

As ways of working and collaborating are standardised, the knowledge that can be extracted from emerging work patterns will become more precise and more valuable.

Deloitte said that data generated by the digital workplace could be used by managers to identify employees suffering emotional stress and burnout. “Psychographic data such as boredom, stress and fatigue can help leaders better allocate tasks and ensure that employees are appropriately challenged and empowered to manage their career goals and be productive while avoiding burnout,” the report said.

The report suggested that AI could work behind the scenes as a coach, offering employees assignments predicted to be both interesting and aligned to their skills. “The coach ‘knows’ the skills and experiences that each employee needs to optimally challenge, and makes suggestions to improve behaviour, collaboration and specialised skills in real time,” the report’s authors wrote.

If digital collaboration tools become part of day-to-day working practices, Deloitte believes that the metrics data collected could help firms map relationships and interactions, which would reveal informal structures that are usually more influential than the formal organisational structure.

“Virtual connection-building tools can nudge contacts between individuals and teams, make customised recommendations to link employees with mentors and like-minded colleagues, and support onboarding by connecting new hires with teammates,” said the report.