In his book “Future of work”, Jacob Morgan discusses how to create an organisation that can easily navigate the upcoming workplace changes. Morgan explains in detail the trends and influences that are significantly contributing to the reshaping of the workplace. He goes on to suggest methods that could be used to deal with the impacts of the changes on the way that employees, managers and the organisation as a whole function.

What I understood from the book is that to have an impact on the present and future, the leveraging of cloud-based collaborative technologies, to eliminate hierarchies, will become standard.

These alterations would not only increase the company’s profits but will also increase employee retention, as their job becomes more fulfilling and enjoyable.

Five trends that have proven to have the significant influence on the future and present outlook of the workplace.

1. Workplace behaviours: The emergence of enhanced technology and engaging social media has blurred the line between professional and personal boundaries, merging the personal and professional sides of the employees and employers lives and therefore having an effect on their workplace behaviours. Regardless of whether they are using Facebook, Google Plus or LinkedIn, employees and employers now live and work in more public and collaborative environments, now more so than ever.

2. Technology: Innovative platforms have been created that cater to everything from socialising to fundraising to shopping and everything in between. Have instant access to handle virtually every aspect of our daily life transformed into an expectation that technology in the workplace should be as accommodating.

In the workplace itself, cloud-based systems, big data, collaboration platforms and the connection between the Internet’s and the physical world have revolutionised the way that employees and employers perform their job. Installing cloud-based systems transfer the monitoring and implementation of new systems, thereby lowering the costs of such significantly. Having this online centralized access, allows for remote access meeting that employees no longer are confined to the building of the Corporation to perform their duties – they can virtually work from anywhere using the collaboration software.

Big data and the Internet of things have only just begun making an impact and have the potential to influence the workplace significantly in the future.

3.Millennials: Those who have only come of age during the turn of this century will consume approximately half of the workplace by 2020. The only world they know involves the mobility, accessibility and collaboration of the Internet. While this method of operation is new to those belonging to older generations, it provides a new outlook and allows them to demand a more flexible and interconnected if workplace than what they are used to. of it.

4. Mobility: Because of the speed, scale and degree of disruption, new technologies are improving the way that people connect with each other and receive information.

5. Globalisation– Globalisation, which is the process of integration and interaction between individuals and organisations on an international level, is taking a dominant position within the workplace rapidly. No longer are we confined to do business within the borders of our country, the world is ultimately connected.

Today’s Workforce

This is the first time in history where five generations share the same workplace. Traditionalists those born before 1946, baby boomers, those born between 1946 and 1965, Generation X, born in 1965 through 1976, millennial’s born between 1977 and 1997 and Generation X, those born after 1997. Most of us focus on the millennial’s, but doing so ignores the older employees who do not share the same values and expectations of their younger counterparts. Managers will need to accommodate this range of age disparity now and in the future.

The future of work
As we move into the future, employees will create their personalized career paths. Teams will be formally on their own and keep themselves organisational separate from managerial or organisation oversight. With the adaptation of social media to work within the workplace environment, every worker will be empowered with a voice in which they may use to contribute to the discussions involving the organization. There is a high possibility that some companies will go as far as to permit employees to customize when and how they perform their duties, giving them options to make adjustments annually or biannually.

The Freelancer Economy

In the future, employees will be employed under scenarios similar to freelancing, allowing them the flexibility and freedom to have control over or how and when they get their work done. This trend is catching on so much so that companies sometimes prefer to hire freelancers instead of hiring in-house staff. With websites such as https://www.freelancer.in/, https://www.behance.net/, https://www.upwork.com/, etc organisation can find freelancers and old retired employees can do freelancing to help companies tests the quality of work of many services as opposed to depending on the qualifications of one, this trend may lead to a point where companies will no longer need employees at all. As a result, employees will have to find work through freelancing and corporations will spread out their work among many various workers.

Today’s Manager

It is known the fact that managers are perceived as leaders in the organization, ultimately controlling every aspect of the business operation. Their job is to oversee the employees, but if the employees are no longer needed, where does that leave the managers. Even more so, with the emergence of cloud-based technology, the need for managers will significantly decrease since their roles will be performed electronically. Future managers are going to have to adapt to the future by becoming strong leaders by clearly displaying their value, gaining an expert level of understanding of technology, and brace vulnerability, a debt to future employees and believe in sharing and collective intelligence.

The Manager less Company
We have already seen that some dynamic companies have abolished their management positions altogether. But these manager list companies made these decisions put the decision of assigning work to employees into the control of the business owners, which still leaves a small amount of room for managers, but not much. In fact, the managers are regarded more as peers to the employees than actual managers in the traditional sense. In order to succeed, the hierarchy still exists but the playing field is more level between the manager and the employees than they ever have been in the past.

The Organization of Today
The corporations that we know of in our lives today are only about 100 years old. Before Henry Ford came into office, most people were entrepreneurs or employees of very small workplaces. Now, corporations are moneymaking machines. The employees are fuel that keeps the engine moving. With so many changes in the workplace, there are 13 principles of future organisations that we will have to come to terms with.

1. Employees will work globally but distributed yet smaller teams
2. Future organizations will need to create a connected workforce.
3. Organisations will have to become intrapreneurial – being an entrepreneur while still being employed by the organization
4. Bigger corporations will operate as a small company
5. organizations will need to focus on creating a place of want and not a place of need for their employees
6. They will have to adapt to change faster.
7. They will have to be able to innovate anywhere at all times.
8. Most of the organization process will be operating from the cloud.
9. Allow more women to hold senior management roles.
10. Have a flatter structure.
11. Equalize the opportunity to learn.
12. Shift their focus from making a profit to being prosperous
13. adapt to the future employee and future manager.

On 03 December, 2016 I got an opportunity to talk on “Future of Work” by HyHCF (Hyderabad Human Capital Fraternity), these were some of the ideas which i discussed with our fellow HR Professionals.

The Future of Work by Jacob Morgan combines his gained experience and knowledge in his own business practices with the least trends and innovations in order to provide a comprehensive analysis of the rapid changes that are taking place in the workplace. Businesses and corporations are going to have to adapt to the changes, or their company will cease to exsist. Those companies who do not plan or fail to plan for the future will not have any future at all.