The telecommuting trends of 2014 would have been entirely unfathomable to previous generations of laborers. But thanks to the miracles of the modern mobile age, working remotely is not only possible, it’s a highly popular and economic opportunity among countless employers.
According to a new report from Frost & Sullivan, the future of virtualized work is brighter than ever. “In 10 years,” the research giant projects, the average work environment will be as foreign to most people now as today’s work environment would be to someone living a century ago.”
Frost & Sullivan’s new analysis, Beyond SOHO: The Future of Work, envisions the future of the professional work setting. And, not surprisingly, mobility is expected to play a key role in the future of work.
As cellular networks become more data-centric, portal devices such as smartphones, tablets, and in the near future, devices like heads-up displays, will provide a portable work experience, the researchers project. The implication of business focused on ideation, armed with virtual work environments that are projected to workers using mobile technologies, is transformational. Communication service providers focused on developing communication capabilities and cloud-based services that facilitate the construction of intelligent ideation spaces on the Web will be the leaders in this work revolution.
“The migration of work from the office to the home is profound,” observes Mike Jude, Ph.D., Consumer Communication Services program manager for Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan. “This relocation defines the way in which professional workers interact, conduct business and manage their work-home dynamic. It also, not incidentally, defines how they buy and utilize communication services.”
“Along with social media and e-gaming, mobility has also largely been overlooked as an enabler of ideation and flexible work,” adds Dr. Jude. “Businesses generally view mobility as a way to extend the utility of employees, instead of combining tools to capture ideas and facilitate ideation. Organizations of the future must break from the misconception that e-gaming, social media and other virtualization tools are confined to marketing and sales functions only, rather than as places for creative interaction.”
