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Modern people possess the capacity to divide themselves into separate modules of thought and action, and deploy them flexibly (Gellner, 1994). The employment relationship, which divides the tasks and skills required for the job role from the rest of the person, has always relied upon this modular capacity (Kallinikos, 2003). The growing practice of ‘informatizing’ work by representing tasks as software-based instructions entails the modular design and management of work, because software itself has a modular form. We investigate the implications of the modular design of work in the empirical context of a ‘shared service centre’, where professional service work was informatized. We make three contributions. First, transforming work into software-based processes makes organizations configurable, because work can be treated as an arrangement of modules which can be adapted, replicated or deleted, irrespective of the professional expertise of employees. Second, this way of organizing demands that employees attempt to deploy enhanced modular capabilities: they must be able to execute any given set of processes, and adapt instantaneously to changing circumstances, by setting aside modules that are no longer required and engaging competently with new ones, all in a strictly unemotional and time-efficient fashion. Third, we argue that under circumstances of financial pressure, the continuing availability of sophisticated software which can be used to informatize complex work, and the existence of established organizational templates which accommodate standardized service work, the modular design and management of other types of professional services may become increasingly common.