Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2020. Read them in this 12th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
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.