Look to the future now - it's only just begun ...

Our predictions and advice for 2012

Our New Year update in January 2012 has a strong focus on the future.  Future workforce, future working practices, and the changing shape of work.  And for good measure, here are our own Top Ten predictions for the coming year.

2012 - The year for global flexibility

These are tough times for most of us.  And all the signs are that 2012 isn't going to be a whole lot easier.  Politically and economically, it is set to be another volatile year.  But some trends are set to continue.  Here they are:

1. Free Agent Nation - home-based entrepreneurs take off
   The two big stories in the labour market over the past 15 years have been the growth of part-time work, and the growth of home-based working.
   
   The latter trend has included large numbers of the existing self-employed becoming home-based and using new technologies, but without much of a rise in the overall numbers of self-employed, usually hovering around 13% of the workforce.  That's partly because in the past the government has done all it can to turn them into employees wherever possible, for tax reasons.
   
   This is going to change fast.  By the end of the year expect to see a rise to around 16%, of whom about 70% will be working at home or using home as a base. Have you ever seen a more specific New Year prediction than this?
    

2. Employees will work more from home too
   Only about 5-6% of employees (in the UK) work at or from home most of the time.  And this won't change much in 2012.  But those who do so for a smaller part of the week will rise dramatically.  At the moment it's around 20%.  It will be up near 30% by the end of 2012.
    

3. The term 'entreployee' will be a buzz word for about 3 months during the year
   It describes employees who have to be more entrepreneurial in their approach to taking their career forward. It reflects trends where "the 'employee' is becoming a much more active worker, not only continuously redefining his or her own capacities and potentials within the company by organizing the work process in a self-determining, 'entrepreneurial' manner, but also on the larger labour market." (Hans Pongratz and Gunter Voss, in their seminal 2003 paper)
   The term has been around for a few years, but expect it to have it's moment in the media sunlight as all the pundits claim it as their own. It will be added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2014.
    

4. Workhubs are the sexy new office - but 30% of them will fail because they don't understand what they are doing
   Drop-in, touch-down office spaces are the on an upward trajectory in 2012.  Some older providers of 3rd party office space continue to adapt their model away from serviced offices to touch-down space. But mostly it is new entrants to the market.  It's an idea whose time has come.
   
   But as in all new fields, there'll be a significant drop-out rate too.  New entrants who are looking for a quick way to riches but don't understand the market will have their fingers burned. Three key principles apply:

   1. Understand who the users are and what they really want

   2. Have a realistic idea of what people are willing to pay - Starbucks is free, after all

   3. Like retail, success has a lot to do with location, location, location.
       

5. Conferencing technologies change the way we collaborate
   There's a perfect storm brewing for making the changes: sky-high fuel costs (which will be exacerbated as the Arab Spring turns to hot summer), easy-to-use conferencing technologies, corporate awareness and continued tough economic times.
   
   Citrix GoToMeeting (and GoToEverything), Microsoft Lync, Skype and the (as yet quite basic) capabilities that come with Google Docs will be leaders, but expect also several new players.
   
   We've made the prophecy about video on your desktop every year since 1997. The video is embedded in these conferencing capabilities, but we won't always use it. Voice, presentations and other shared documents are what it's all about.
    

6. Wi-Fi on East Coast rail service gets even slower ...
   ...so it will be quicker to get there first and use the station Wi-Fi.
   
   There may be a lot of talk about improving connectivity on public transport, but don't expect anything serious to happen.  Poor public transport infrastructure + ropey communications infrastructure = double trouble in trying to upgrade anything.
   
   So online collaboration from a train will remain ... vexatious.
    

7. Public sector slims down and gets flexible, or possibly very depressed
   After a slow gestation, several false starts and a lot of hand-wringing, the property rationalisation programmes in the public sector really start to make a difference. Expect some organisations to be halving the number of desks and cutting their property by two thirds.
   
   But there will be two types of rationalisation: Type S - strategic, with a focus on flexibility, agility, customer value and good design; and Type B - B for Brutal.  Cost driven, slash and burn approaches that demoralise staff and lower service standards.  Staff hang on only because it's hard to find jobs anywhere else.
   
   If you're in this sector, which way is your organisation going? Help them to be Type S, for Smart and Strategic, beginning with the approach from our Smart Working Handbook!
    

8. Flexibility is the new trend for developing economies
   And we're seeing signs of this already.  New ways of less resource-intensive working are becoming attractive to the more advanced developing countries in particular - countries with a fast-growing middle class, well-educated and high-tech savvy younger generation, and a sufficiently aware political class who can see the problems with traditional styles of economic development.
   
   So expect interesting new flexible vibes and initiatives coming out of China, India, South-East Asia, the Middle East and Latin America in particular. And with a third of Africans now classed as 'middle class' plus some fast-developing economies, expect some interesting new ideas and practices from this continent too.
   
   To some extent there'll be a continuation of conversations about trust and isolation that we're familiar with in countries that have gone down this road earlier.  But the ability to leap over legacy technologies, and different cultural dynamics will bring some exciting innovations and new opportunities.
    

9. Work-life Balance makes a comeback
   Gloom and doom has had us keeping our heads down. No time for wrestling with work-life issues when the choice is to be at the mill with slaves or at the job centre without hope.
   
   But we can only be like this for so long before we raise our eyes up to the higher levels of the hierarchy of needs and question why we are doing this.
   
   Expect this to be a big trend in Asia where work-life balance will be part of the intelligent questioning of the race to riches and new approaches to corporate and civic values.
    

10. Expect some crazy tech to try to resolve an issue that doesn't need to be resolved
    I love the innovations that try to engineer some physical kit when actually, you don't need any.  Back in the 1990s we had a range of in-home office lockaway solutions that looked like the cockpit of an aeroplane, or Supercar, or possibly a very small caravan.  To give you that privacy and security you need, with integrated home computing.  But the world has turned out very different, with ever smaller high-tech portable devices used in comfortable, low-tech domestic spaces.
    
    More recently we've had robots that could attend meetings on your behalf. Seems some bright people can't get past the old-style meetings paradigm.  But these are fun, and all parts of the learning curve.
    
    What will it be? Maybe 'meeting twin' goggles with inbuilt webcams you can wear so remote colleagues can get more of a human angle on meetings. Or robotic pedestals that can follow you around hotdesking areas, to carry all your personal storage around behind you. Some bright spark will probably design high tech remote working pods for train travellers (at £50 an hour) - when what we actually need is Wi-Fi that works.
    
    But with the car set to be the focus of much Internet-based entertainment tech, maybe we can expect this to be leveraged in daft ways for mobile workers too. Put your seatbelts on and watch this space!