By Mark Strassman, SVP and GM of UCC, LogMeIn

The Future of Work

It's a dynamic time in the workplace with the emergence of new technologies that are pushing the boundaries of our capabilities, uncovering new business opportunities and driving change in how we work every day. Many aspects of the work evolution that have been building over the past few years are now hitting the mainstream landscape. Companies that had been reluctant to embrace new trends are starting to realize the potential benefits. With this wider adoption comes the opportunity to discover even more improvements for how we do our jobs and the role that work plays in our lives.

Remote work will become a mainstream practice

In 2020, remote work will become an integral part of work culture where remote locations become extensions of the corporate office. We've already seen the shift from management being reluctant to allow remote work to leaders understanding the added value it brings for employee productivity and retention. Furthermore, more employees are taking advantage of remote work with Gartner predicting that by next year, half of the U.S. will work outside the traditional office setting most of the time.

The role of remote work site leader will emerge  

Most physical site locations have a designated leader that sets the organization's culture, plans events, picks collaboration tools, designs office layouts and more. With the growing prevalence of remote work, companies will begin to treat remote employees as virtual satellite offices. Because of this, we will start to see the rise of a designated remote work site leader. This role will help define remote workforce culture by initiating virtual team building events such as sports competitions, remote book clubs, annual retreats, holiday parties and more.

Consumerism of enterprise tools will change how IT operates

As work/life integration becomes more prominent, consumers are having a stronger say in what tools enable them to work more productively. Employees want enterprise tools to mimic the devices they use in their everyday lives, especially since video communication and voice-activated commands have become mainstream for consumers. The challenge is to deliver a consumer-friendly, enterprise-grade product that appeals to employees but still aligns with IT standards on security, cost and scalability. Because of this, I expect to see IT taking a new approach to technology decision making where the employee experience is a major factor.

Business travel will meet new expectations   

Collaboration tools have replaced the need to travel in order to connect with clients and colleagues globally. Over the next five to ten years, the motive behind business travel and the amount of business travel in general, will change. Rather than hopping on a plane to visit one customer, management will expect the travel to serve multiple purposes. We'll see employees leverage a customer meeting as an opportunity to also schedule a corporate outing with colleagues in a satellite office, attend a conference or speak at a local event. I expect that employees will also combine business travel with personal purposes more so than ever before as they're able to switch on and off from work.

New technologies will put more onus on employee skills development

There is much discussion on whether robots will take jobs away, yet that's not the reality for most employees. The reality is that workers could be replaced by other human employees that are better trained in working with advanced technology. We'll see employees and managers face a bigger responsibility to ensure individuals and teams are properly trained for their evolving roles. There will be more discussion on what training is appropriate for certain jobs and it will most certainly include skills that haven't previously been associated with those positions.   

There is a unifying factor in these predictions in that they primarily focus on the individual worker. This is part of a growing movement towards personalized work and how that fits within the corporate ecosystem. What's clear is that in the next few years, we will see dramatic changes to work culture and the individual worker is likely to have more options for success.

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About the Author

Mark is SVP and GM for LogMeIn's Unified Communications & Collaboration business unit, overseeing market-leading UCC products GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, Jive, Grasshopper and more. Mark joins LogMeIn from BlueJeans Networks, where he served as chief product officer. Prior to BlueJeans, he was SVP of products at Blackboard, Inc. He's also held various leadership positions at Autodesk, Inc., Adobe and Macromedia.