By THE OFFICE DESK days are numbered
THE OFFICE DESK, as we know it, may have had its day. A large study on the future of work in the UK predicts the rise of the “mobile worker” moving — laptop and mobile in tow — between office, home, hotel, airport lounge or motorway service station as the needs of a job demand.
Today, more than 5 million people, almost a fifth of employees, already spend some time working at home or on the move, according to the report published by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Tomorrow Project, a charity studying future trends. That number will shoot up over the coming decades, the researchers say, with mobile work becoming one of the fastest-growing types of employment.
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“Individuals will not necessarily see themselves as working from home,” according to the study, Working in the Twenty-First Century, extra copies of which have been ordered by Tony Blair’s office in Downing Street. “They could equally be working from the office. But they will be on the move from place to place, working at various times of the day, for much of the week. “For a substantial proportion of workers, work in 20 years’ time will be more about movement than staying put.”
The rise of the mobile worker, and the continuing development of home working, has significant implications. While the office itself will not disappear, despite many predictions of its demise, “mobile work and home working will involve a shift from personalized space to personalized time,” the study concludes.
Rooms or desks belonging to an individual and often personalized with photographs and plants will, it forecasts, increasingly be replaced by “the collective office” in which employees will “hot desk” on anonymous work stations.
For workers, this loss of personal space will be offset by greater control of time, allowing them to use technology to work late in a hotel while on the road, the study argues. But it concedes that managing time will be an issue for this growing section of the workforce, with the boundaries of work and leisure time becoming less distinct, potentially adding to family conflict. “Once work weaves into all the nooks and crannies of your life, deciding when to work will be increasingly difficult. Getting the job done will compete with the family.”
The report warns: “The job will intrude on moments of personal reflection. Whatever the statutory limit on working hours, fluid time will help work to burrow into more of your time.” Managers of mobile workers will find new ways to “control” staff, it adds. Some are already doing so through extending electronic surveillance of work completed, while others are seeking more radical methods based on capturing workers’ hearts and minds to create a culture of hard work even at a distance.
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