The workplace is now two places: Digital & Physical
In board rooms and executive offices of all industries around the world the raging debate is should everyone return to the physical workspace or work from home and various mutations thereof. Some companies, such as Goldman Sachs wants everyone back in the office. Some companies are abandoning the office as a physical space entirely. It would seem that most are going with a hybrid model with different approaches, such as letting staff work 2–3 days at home and the others in the office. Requiring some to always be in the office and other roles to be entirely at home.
The reality is likely to be a multitude of variations on a theme. How it all will work out in the end we won’t likely know for at least two to three years as we come out of the pandemic. What we can say is that all businesses have become two places; physical and digital. This will become even more so as digital technologies such as Augmented and Virtual Reality enter the workspace. Businesses that want to gain competitive advantage must today think in multidimensional perspectives. Those that don’t, will falter and risk collapse. More on that another time.
So what are these two spaces? The workplace today is predicated on Information Technology (IT.) Even in restaurants and retail stores. Because computers have become ubiquitous and small and interconnected, they are everywhere and they have changed how humans perceive spaces. Most knowledge workers today use a laptop and also have a smartphone. Just a couple of decades ago, the only work you could take home was what fit in briefcase. Now you can take the entire knowledge-base of the company home in a laptop bag, on a tablet or smartphone. That is the digital workspace.
The pandemic accelerated three years of digital technology deployments in the workplace into under three months. The end result is that we firmly now have both a physical and digital workspace.
So what does that mean for business management? We can’t know all the implications yet, but there are some immediate issues that should be addressed. Cybersecurity is at the forefront, from securing networks, but also dealing with a distributed workforce and thus rights management, training for social engineering attacks and information access. Then there’s workplace policies such as HR and dealing with cyberbullying and harassment in the workplace and social media policy updates. Keeping teams functional and cohesive will also be a challenge, where in some cases, a team may never physically meet one another or very rarely. Motivation and team cohesion become a challenge. Video meetings will not solve this issue. Then there’s the issue of employee surveillance, the ethical, moral and legal implications of productivity monitoring and the use of Artificial Intelligence.
Management has never had to think of the workplace as two separate places before. Now, they will have to. With a hybrid of work-from-home and in the office, this will be easier. The advantages of a physical office are the subtle yet crucial aspects of humans being together, such as in a meeting room where body language can be read, side-bars held after a meeting and collaboration that can be more meaningful.
However we end up working, the digital space is here to stay and business as well as any other organisation will need to consider the approaches and implications, processes and policies to navigate these two worlds. Given how it’s gone so far, there are some great opportunities for employers to attract better talent and for employees to find greater job satisfaction. Some organisations will do very well, others will struggle. Executive management and board directors will do well to become more digitally savvy. CIO’s and chief digital officers will need to work ever more closely with executive and HR departments.
