Is the employee of the future going to be a young, be-suited man or woman sitting at a desk from nine to five? Could it be that future workspaces will be made up of meeting space, and the concept of having your own desk at work no longer existing? The notion of nine to five might gradually disappear, with staff working ad-hoc hours.

Workplace

Offices will probably disappear and instead mini-business centres could spring up near satellite offices. Increasingly people will work from home as organisations cut down their overheads on office space and use remote locations as the new-age workplace.

Wi-Fi streets

These communities will build up around 'streetscapes' with services for workers such as hairdressers and cafés. Workers will only come to the office to collaborate. Better technology infrastructure will make distributed working easier. Gone will be the days when cafes, hotels and petrol stations, were Wi-Fi hotspots, workers of tomorrow won’t need such limitations. Instead they will blog on the train, in between sips of coffee and uploading files before filling up the car or send a few emails in the school car park. Of course, all of this will have a positive impact on health and stress levels.

Tomorrow’s leaders today

Already our new-age leaders are considering employee value based on performance rather than a 9-5 office attendance. They are working out mobile and remote agreements on how their teams can manage flexible working. They are investing in the right technology for new-age employees to work from home or on the go, not just broadband connected laptops, but phones with mobile email access. It will all be so simple it won’t feel like anything else except the ‘norm’. There will be nothing advanced or special about sending ‘granny’ the weekend’s party pix and the ‘boss’ Monday’s Weekly Report while standing in the queue at Sainsbury’s.

Recruiting remote workers

With this new-age worker in mind, many employers are now considering remote working and working from home as viable options in their recruitment drive. Websites such as remote employment will come to the fore and take the lead in recruiting ‘tomorrow’s workers’. Currently, around £3.1 million people usually or regularly work from home and this is likely to double in the near future.

New business opportunities

The staggering figure of ‘one in seven’ mothers who currently work flexible hours with 12% of them using a ‘term time’ working arrangement will explode and more than half of the ‘mummy’ population will own businesses. Home working franchises and online businesses, allowing mums to pursue a career and maintain an income with the opportunity to work from home, will be ‘old hat’. Dads, too, will be entrepreneurs of the future juggling all sorts of enterprising start-ups around the kid’s meal times.

Virtual recruitment

Ken Sheridan, managing director of Remote Employment, believes the recent emergence of 'virtual jobs' and ‘virtual communities’ is changing the way companies attract and retain skilled employees. Smarter organisations reduce employment costs by adopting ‘remote working’ as a regular employment solution.

Remote Employment is an online web service specialising in remote working, work from home positions and home based appointments. They promote work-life balance with employment solutions such as flexible working, remote working, mobile working and working from home. Adopting this modern day approach to our working lives will increase business productivity and competitiveness, reduce transport congestion and pollution, improve health, assist disadvantaged groups and harmonise our work and family commitments.

Sheridan adds: “The new-age worker’s 'green agenda' will increase home working, which will make it much easier for families to combine work and caring responsibilities. Flexible working at senior levels will be more acceptable, which will encourage more men, particularly in younger age groups, to ask for flexible arrangements enabling them to participate more fully in family life at no cost to their career ambitions.

Remote Employment hopes thousands of companies and organisations will follow the new-age worker by implementing flexible working practices to the benefit of their business, their employees, and the country as a whole.