The development of digital workplaces within community-based emergency services

The digital workplace is an organizational asset that enhances employee experience, drives value for organizations, and is a critical component desired for digital transformation. While extant literature on digital workplaces and transformation is plentiful, their interaction regarding digital workplace design levers at a micro level remains largely unexplored. In this research, we adopt digital workplace design levers from the literature and apply that to the world’s largest firefighting agency to understand how the agency redesigned its workplace to generate value for emergency services. The design levers identified in this study were physical space, IT systems, symbols, managerial focus, social media, and systemic learning. Embraced by coercive, normative, and mimetic institutional elements, deinstitutionalization in emergency services was examined through the lens of Institutional Theory. We recommend three strategies that generate value for emergency management agencies engaged in digital workplace transformation.