Here are a few trends that are going to define workplaces in the near future

Matt Cain

Application leaders and business executives haven’t traditionally spent much time contemplating how work will change in years to come. That’s largely because the IT organisation has focused on operational excellence and because over the past three decades, the pace of change in the workforce has been relatively slow and predictable.

Circumstances have changed. The IT charter is expanding to include a larger focus on individuals, teams and overall business performance, and accelerating technology cycles are rapidly increasing the pace of change in work patterns.

Digital business models and platforms are fundamentally restructuring how business is conducted. Cloud services —and in particular SaaS applications —are increasing the speed of technology change at a rate unthinkable in the days of on-premises deployment. At the same time, the nature of work is being transformed with new work patterns such as the gig economy and flatter organisation models, while artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to transform how work is done.

Application leaders need to anticipate the future of work to understand what IT skills are needed to support the changes and ensure that technology aligns with future work patterns.

Three overarching future work trends expected in developed nations in the 2022 – 2026 time frame, along with some of their key impacts:

Worker digital dexterity will become critical

Increasing reliance on digital services in all aspects of work creates an uncertain future, but one thing is clear— the digital dexterity of the workforce is the most effective mechanism to ensure that it can keep pace with and exploit vast amounts of change. Technology impact will manifest itself in a number of ways, including:

“The impact of technologies such as blockchain, AI, Internet of Things (IoT) and 3D printing will have a transformative impact on how work gets done. The API economy and a business platform model forces tech changes into the mainstream. Along with those transformative technologies, software as a service (SaaS) applications will accelerate technology change for almost every worker through horizontal applications for cloud office and human capital management, and through targeted applications for IT service management (ITSM), finance, sales and marketing.

The growing recognition of the importance of digital dexterity creates a demand for measurement, which aligns with analytics becoming more pervasive in the enterprise.  Social science-based surveys and observations are increasingly accepted to collect relevant digital dexterity data, which can be combined with machine-generated IT, HR and business data to measure and optimise workforce digital dexterity.

AI will prevail

The conversion of rich input patterns into data that can be readily made actionable is at the heart of  AI's potential . AI will have a profound impact on how work is assigned, completed and evaluated. Cain suggests that although AI will have a will have a broad impact on work, two areas of interest are the impact of robobosses and on the physical workplace. Robobosses on the rise. While most employees will not report to an AI construct, the implementation of roboboss-type services will lead to more automation of  management duties such as work assignment, training and career counselling. More granular tracking of worker activities will allow AI-fueled services to programmatically offer assistance in improving performance or meeting goalsPhysical workplaces become smart. Facilities and space management disciplines have undergone substantial change. Open seating helps drive collaborative behavior, while huddle rooms create small-team intimacy. We are also on the cusp of a move to “smart workspaces” that exploit networks of beacons, sensors and actuators in the workplace. An employee, for example, might use an app to guide her to the closest parking space, and be assigned a workspace and conference room as she enters the building. At the same time, her “smart badge” can track her location for safety purposes.

Gig economy will thrive

Organisations will increasingly learn and borrow from freelance management and gig economy platforms, which dynamically match short-term work requirements directly with workers who have the relevant knowledge, experience, skills, competencies and availability. This will mean moving away from traditional organisational structures to more fluid models.

Employees get work through employment marketplaces. Freelancer marketplaces make it easier for employers to tap into a set of contractors for short-term work commitments. In parallel, professional social networking platforms and recruiting technology providers have been investing heavily in matching algorithms to pair up talent supply and demand. Within the enterprise, these two trends are translating into an internal employment marketplace. Organisational leaders will be able to tap into an internal talent pool, and individual employees can both seek and be sought for work opportunities. This is about breaking work down into individual products, services or deliverables and using technology to match the available talent to the work that needs to get accomplished.

Traditionally, organisations have created clear career paths for employees. While workers need a purpose-focused direction, a portfolio of experiences builds knowledge and skills and allows for the practice and improvement of competencies. Employees will increasingly find the accumulation of experiences to be more realistic than a carefully plotted-out career path.