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| p2p Magaz i ne | Spr i ng 2013
RESEARCH
Is this the end of work
as we know it?
Commissioned by Esselte
Corporation to mark its 100-year
anniversary, the paper looks at the
current and future world of work,
highlighting the key changes both
employees and companies are going
to have to adapt to.
When Esselte was founded, industry
was only just coming to terms with
office work as we recognise it. There
were no calculators; big companies
employed large teams of typists;
Tippex had yet to be invented, so any
errors required starting again from
the beginning; carbon copy or the
printing press was the only way to
create duplicates of documents; and
the telephone was available only to
comparatively few.
In contrast, today, most of us and
especially the 25 and under age group,
could not run our working or even
personal lives without the internet, 24/7
instant global communication, laptops,
iPads, tablets, mobile phones and social
media.
One key factor highlighted in the
study that is driving changes in the way
we work and our management cultures
is the generation gap. By 2050 over
65s will represent around 50% of the
working population in Europe; in 2010
they represented only around 25%. And
whilst millennials and Gen Y are more
tech-savvy than any other generation,
their values, ambitions and approach
to work is very different to their
predecessors.
Upwardly mobile
RichardWatson of Futures House
Europe and co-author of ‘
The Future
of Work
’ said that as a result of the
internet, new technologies, the huge
increase in mobile or home working,
part-time jobs and today’s ‘always on’
24/7 culture, most people now spend
more time working than sleeping.
“By 2015 around 40% of the total
workforce will be mobile. The reason
for this is that work is no longer where
the office is but for mobile workers it
is wherever they are – be that their car,
home, coffee shop, the airport, customer
site or even on holiday. This is just one
area the report identifies as having a
massive impact on the way we work.”
Today, mobile workers carry around
3.5 mobile devices but going forward
this may reduce to one, as The Cloud
becomes a storage system and a virtual
hub for an organisation’s mobile, semi-
structured workforce.
“Mobile working was supposed to
promote a greater work/life balance but
it can lead to greater burdens through
today’s ‘always on’ culture: companies
need to look at ways to offset this,” says
Martin Kula, Vice President Marketing,
Esselte.
Security of information
Security of information was another
issue with the study reporting that
organisations of the future will be more
fluid with fewer full-time employees.
Talent will be imported as needed and
resource co-ordinators will put together
best teams for particular projects from
inside and outside the organisation
blending them and their equipment
together. All will have their own devices
(BYOD) and potentially work remotely
creating huge security and data storage/
retrieval challenges.
“It’s going to be a tough balancing
act for companies to meet the
challenge of being open and flexible
but also secure. Too much information
and intelligence is potentially too
readily available to the wrong people
and if we are not careful we could
be unknowingly contravening local
legislature and policies,” says Kula.
The overall conclusions of the report
suggest that the traditional office is
dying and will only remain relevant
where security concerns or face-to-face
presence is paramount.
“Helping people be organised and
in control is Esselte’s core competence:
it is in our DNA. The paper also shows
that security, digital data storage and
retrieval of information is likely to
become harder not easier. This is why
our focus remains on making sure vital
documents are secure, adapting desktop
tools to the modern environment and
providing innovative products which
bring paper and digital together, such as
Leitz Cloud and Leitz Complete, to help
people run productive and organised
companies now and in the future,”
says Kula.
A complimentary download of
the white paper is available on
www.esselte.com/whitepaper
Working together and leading
by example are key factors in
improving green practices at work
ummer 2013
01732 759725
A new whitepaper, ‘
The Future of Work
’,
suggests it could be.
Martin Kula, Vice President Marketing, Esselte
... most of us and especially
the 25 and under age group,
could not run our working or
even personal lives without
the internet...
“By 2015 around 40% of the
total workforce will be mobile.