Deloitte 477 Collins St, Melbourne

The vison for the project was; 'To set a new standard for employee experience and to act as a beacon for Deloitte's presence in the market; to inspire and empower our people and clients as they build lasting relationships, and support the convergence of work and life. In short, it will be a place to bring out your best.' Our workplace is the physical manifestation of our employee and client experience and it must support flexible work practices, wellbeing, diversity, collaboration and allow us to truly partner with our clients working shoulder to shoulder together.

The workplace delivers an optimised experience for staff and clients that embody our brand values. The design supports the work we do, and empower employees by providing varied settings and opportunities for interaction, as well as choices to accommodate individual preferences of when, where and how to work. We have been able to cater for the diverse needs of our own organisation and our clients. There are places to connect with our clients in less formal ways, places to showcase our thought leadership, to show not tell, and to celebrate our capabilities and culture as both inwards and outwards expressions.

Our people are our business. This project takes a human centred (HCD) and co-creational approach to a new level, as through the use of our internal designers and strategists, this meant that we not only understood the complexities of the business but also that we could work internally with the right stakeholders, at the right time, to ensure that the vision of the new workplace was shared and embraced by the business throughout. Unlike many projects that focus on the design, documentation and delivery, our focus was the employee experience as well as business commercial and strategic objectives.

Our journey doesn't end with moving in. As we settle in at 477 Collins Street, we recognise that this is a shared experience; from prototype testing to include our people, and utilisation sensors to provide data allowing for purposeful decision making to continue to adapt and evolve the workplace. This project is an example of our 'Living workplace' philosophy as it is continuously able to respond to changing needs of the organisation over time, and showcases how flexibility at scale can be achieved. Due to COVID-19, the ways that our staff and clients use the workplace has shifted quicker than anticipated as an acceleration of flexibility. In fact, we now recognise work is no longer a place, but a mindset. The design of the workplace has supported uplift in hybrid behaviours such as inclusive collaboration across dispersed teams and geographies with suitable technology and AV. The virtual office and the physical office align, due to development of a resolved Virtual Office approach prior to 2020. The varied settings include for large gatherings such as town halls or social events, as we know the importance of connection for our people and our culture is essential for a well-rounded employee experience.