Firms need more flexibility in future

New Orange report outlines how the workplace will look in the years ahead

Businesses must be ready to adapt to a changing work environment over the next decade, according to a new report from the Orange Future Enterprise Coalition (Ofec). The group identified leadership, and management of a more distributed workforce, as the key to firms remaining competitive in the future.

At a roundtable event to unveil the report, Ofec outlined four possible future scenarios for the workplace. These ranged from centralised business control of all intellectual property and where and when work takes place, through to a decentralised model based on open-source concepts with workers free to choose when and where they work.

In reality, future organisations will combine elements from each scenario, Ofec added.

Charles Leadbeater, an independent adviser on innovation, said that although many organisations already resemble the first scenario, many of the most successful firms cannot be pigeonholed into any of the four examples. "Rolls Royce, Nokia, and ARM don’t fit any of the four models, and these know how to manage innovation," he added.

While technology is a key enabler for the future, it should not be the driving force behind changes, argued Robert Ainger, head of marketing for Orange Business Services. "A technology-led approach can easily fail if human factors are not considered," he said.

Alan Harrison, head of IT for Yorkshire Water, advised managers to focus on leadership and become more inspirational. "Communication will be key, and [workers] will need to be in touch constantly all the time. The people agenda also needs to be higher in executives' agenda than it has been in the past," he added.