People at my company sometimes have a hard time understanding that I won't immediately respond to slack, or emails, or text messages, or unscheduled phone calls, or electronic task assignements, etc. My role usually requires me to bury my head into a problem and try to find the subtle cues that will lead me to the needle in a haystack. The only way to concentrate on a single thread for 20-30 minutes at a time is to turn off those distractions.
"... many of the tasks that are distributed throughout the day ... were historically handled by an assistant, secretary ... Is this a cost savings?..."
I believe that many companies are eventually going to start shifting the numbers of higher-paid professionals more towards lower-paid assistants . The exact numbers of each will be dynamic and different for each company. Inevitably, I see it as part of the role of Human Resources to determine how many employees of each skillset will be employed. (queue the union demands)