Workplace mind shifts

Digital technologies allow people to change the workplace in a fundamental way. The connectivity enabled by these technologies has opened new opportunities for how, when, and where people work. Those opportunities, when exploited, can help organisations be more effective in their use of human capital. Capturing these opportunities requires a mind shift whereby corporate real estate professionals perceive things differently‐and then act differently. That mind shift should challenge established values and assumptions about where value gets created as well as where people work and how people connect with others. The mind shift should, in turn, lead workspace professionals to rethink their approaches to workplace design, and stimulate new organisational patterns for creating, justifying and continuously improving workplaces and enterprise‐wide workplace portfolios. Pioneering work by SunMicrosystems and Hewlett Packard is showing the way. Other workplace professionals can effectively follow if they harness the connective power of technology as an integral part of workplace design. That design should begin with the work that needs to be done; create the best package of physical and cyber space to do it; and evolve as work requirements change.