AI WILL CHANGE THE WORKPLACE MORE THAN WE COULD POSSIBLE IMAGINE… AND ITS PRETTY GOOD NEWS

The Current Working model

History tells a story of hard work across many generations. From the tough and squalid conditions of the northern pits and life threatening risks of the factories and mills at the start of the industrial revolution. Moving on from here we hear the tales of the grafters in our own families and personally coming from a family of hard workers with strong work ethics I have no doubts we have a history of hard work and as the term goes, we’ve ‘stood our corner’ well in the past.

But where do we go from here, what’s the current attitude and approach to work today in a fast paced modern world and were does the future lie in our daily grind or the traditional 9 to 5….

The new model Army of workers

I’m a Gen X and I remember a time before mobile phones dominated our daily lives and work lives. I recall holidays with no mobile phone or smartphone when the means of contact home was a prepay phone card and phone box. I also then went on to witness holidays with Nokia’s and Blackberrys and the gradual acceptance that we could respond to the odd email ‘if needed’ and I remember closing a big deal on my blackberry from a sun lounger one year, while my wife snoozed.

But we have an ally, a sensible, educated and confidently self assured new model army of work colleagues, the Millennials. Millennials have grown up with technology as a core part of their lives, they use it to impressive effect but they also know when to switch off and a from my own observations an impressive and sensible balance. They work odd hours, they have no guilt in taking time out without request knowing they can put the time in elsewhere. They can, and often are called out for been lazy, but by whom, the work flogged Gen X who can’t seem to say no. In my opinion we need a middle ground between the two.

The good news for the Gen Xs out there is… the Millennials are now here and they are subtlety changing things for the better. Solutions improve Blackberry devices evolved and Nokia’s started to disappear and then the IPhone arrived, couples with usable Roaming Traiffs and wider access to WiFi, making the holiday and social time interruption a common place, unbeknownst to us, at the time, we had slipped back to the old ways of working long hours but swapping from ‘first in the office to last to leave’ culture to ‘they’re always on their device’ and people in our organisations became famous for been always available.

Also as the tech improved, we were quick to realise that it could allow us to work from home almost every day as long as we managed the security aspects carefully. Companies raced to enable their employees to work from home. We saw a number of big progressive brands become the champions of flexible working, with many no longer providing fixed desks, or only providing a very limited hot desks shared amongst many. This culture appealed to many and became a point to stress in attracting hot talent. Some even going as far as not allowing unlimited holidays

The results years down the line is that flexible working is now an integral part of many roles and allows us the flexibility to take the kids to school, MOT the car, visit the dentist all without eating into our holiday allowance. Flexible Working is now a must for many executives and companies not offering this will likely be scraping the barrel to find recruits

So all is rosy in the garden right? Well not quite….

The very mention of the statement ‘I’m working from home’ fills most people with images of slow starts, friends over for coffee or long lunches and early finishes. And while big brands promote their commitment to work life balance their management teams struggle to track tasks and know who contributing and who isn’t.

AI and the Future of Flexible Working

As technology has enabled the whole flexible working option, it will also soon track our every second of effort, our every key stroke, our every coffee break. In fact with AI technology accurate reports will detail every aspect of every project we work on and clearly call out who did what and when. This will be the real Big Brother

So the tools allow us to work anywhere, we acknowledge we’ve worked too long and hard in the past and set an unmanageable standard long term

So what’s the future…