Enterprise Mobility Summit 2014: IT must work with facilities to ensure successful workplace transformation - Intel

Businesses are rethinking how they ought to work, argues Intel strategist Jim Henrys

IT must work with human resources and facilities to ensure that they can undergo a successful workplace transformation, according to Intel's principal thought leader and strategist, Jim Henrys.

Henrys, presenting at Computing's Enterprise Mobility Summit 2014, said that workforce transformations were taking place because businesses were seeing lower cost competitors achieve parity on quality and service, and because in many instances new business models were taking away market share from traditional models.

He suggested that businesses are therefore totally rethinking how they should work - with a focus on agile working, shifting the mind-set of working to being an area rather than working in one defined place, and attention on attracting and retaining talent.

"There is a big focus on attracting and retaining talent, especially 'millennials', who are straight out of university. Top talent today isn't as motivated by money as previous generations, and they are flocking to start-ups, so big organisations have to do their best to attract these people," Henrys said.

A major attraction for these candidates is the ability to work with "Minority Report-esque" flexibility, he said, but this wasn't something that was a reality in most businesses - although some technology, such as wireless charging of devices and full facial recognition for passwords, is being rolled out at the moment.

Henrys emphasised the important role that HR and IT play when organisations undergo workforce transformation, but said that the facilities department, often overlooked, was also integral to the process.

"What we've learnt at Intel when going through our own transformation is facilities is absolutely a big part of this and it is really important that other businesses take this on board," he said.