Shape up for the workplace of the future, says new government report

A new report released by the Department of Trade and Industry, explores how the working environment will change in the next 15 years. 'Work in the Knowledge-Driven Economy', published by the DTI's Future Unit concludes that for many in this generation, the world of work in 2015 will be very different to that of their parents.

Industry Minister, Alan Johnson says of the report: "This piece of work raises interesting issues about the way we will be doing business and organising work in the future. It is designed to provoke debate both in the Department, and more generally, and to help us prepare for and shape the changes ahead of us".

Working environments and attitudes have already changed in the past 15 years, with the loss of 'job for life' security and the recent expansion into the homeworking sector. The report envisages new skills and attitudes which will be needed for the workplace of the future.
Basing its theories on the expertise of business people, representative organisations and academics, the report delineates the factors that will make the working structure change:

• The move from manufacturing to service sector jobs and from the blue collar to white collar jobs will continue.
• White collar clerical work will decline whilst highly skilled knowledge-based jobs will grow
• Service sector employment will become increasingly important as the "human touch" will be difficult to replicate with machines
• Teleworking could grow substantially and many companies will be able to take advantage of different time zones to compress three working days into one
  There are two basic scenarios explained in the report to help understand how the future of work might change.
• Wired World - an economy composed of a network of individuals working on projects over the internet
• Built-to-last - describes a world in which large companies use incentive packages to persuade their employees to remain in-house.
  

The DTI surmise that the future workplace will contain elements of both scenarios and say it is a world where individuals develop sets of skills and knowledge which can be sold to the highest bidder.

Julie Crisp