Future Work: How Businesses Can Adapt and Thrive in the New World of Work

The way we work is overdue for change. Businesses want to increase efficiency and attract the best talent and skills. The new workforce wants a fresh deal. Aided by technology, companies now have the tools to boost output and cut costs, to give employees more freedom over how they work, and to contribute to a greener economy. But many organizations are slow to realize this. They cling to a rigid model of fixed working time and presence better suited to the industrial age than the digital age. This is bad for business. There is ample evidence that trusting people to manage their own work lives, whether individually or in teams, pays off. Organizations that measure and reward people by results, rather than hours, benefit from higher productivity, more motivated workers, better customer service, and lower costs. Future Work sets out the compelling business case for a change in organizational cultures and working practices, drawing on a unique international survey and dozens of examples of companies making the transition. It explains: / Why current flexible work arrangements fail to achieve the business benefits of a wholesale shift to an autonomous work culture / Why future work requires leadership styles that play to female strengths / Why offices of the future will be meeting places rather than workplaces / How managers can help virtual teams to collaborate and ensure that technology is our servant, not our master It takes bold leadership and a break with old habits. But future work will not wait for those who fail to grasp the opportunities now.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Flexibility As A Uniting Force Between People And Generations At Work The Evolution Of Technology And Its Uses At Work From Workplace To Meeting Place: Emerging Organizational Models What Today's Managers Say About The New World Of Work And The Challenges They Face Making Change: How Organizational Culture Can Be Adapted To Enable Remote Working And Other Empowering Work Arrangements Think Flexibly: A Step-By-Step Guide To Introducing And Managing New Ways Of Working Managing Remote Teams And Virtual Teams Across Borders Is It For Me?: How Managers Can Be Flexible Too The Way Ahead: Projections For The Future (From Workplace To Workspace)

About the Author :
ALISON MAITLAND is a writer, speaker and conference moderator specialising in leadership, gender and work. A former long-serving Financial Times journalist, she is co-author of the prize-winning book Why Women Mean Business. She has been researching and writing about corporate culture and the changing workforce since the late 1990s, including eight years as FT Management Writer. She is Director of The Conference Board's Council for Diversity in Business and a Senior Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Management at Cass Business School, London. A frequent conference speaker, she also regularly contributes articles to the Financial Times and other media. PETER THOMSON is an acknowledged authority on the changing world of work and its impact on organisation culture and management practices. He is a regular speaker on the future of work and, as a director of Wisework Ltd, advises clients on creating a corporate culture which supports new working practices. He is a Visiting Executive Fellow at Henley Business School where he was Director of the Future Work Forum for 16 years and he is now Research Director for the Telework Association. He spent the majority of his professional career in HR/Personnel and was head of the HR function in Digital Equipment when the company pioneered new working practices.

Review :
'Every manager who cares about the future success of their organisation should read this book. It's not only very readable but presents some cogent arguments that all organisations should give serious consideration to.' - David Pardey, Edge "This book provides challenging and persuasive examples of the need to change and is recommended as a wake-up call to the corporate world." - Management Today 'Future Work sounds seductive. But very few organizations have actually changed the way they really do work. Maitland and Thomson have painted a comprehensive and compelling picture of what's possible, going way beyond the typical hype about technology and GenY. And they've dug deeply to report many very human stories about how the future of work is happening today, and what it takes to transform the workplace. If you read this book and then put it aside without changing the way you manage, you'll wind up watching the future of work from the sidelines.' - James P. Ware, Executive Director, The Future of Work...unlimited 'An invaluable resource for anyone who needs to increase employee productivity and reduce costs, and wants to do so in a way which is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable.' - Stephen Leonard, Chief Executive, IBM UK and Ireland 'Future Work lives up to its title - it presents a compelling view of how work is being transformed in ways that benefit the employee and employer alike. More than that, it is a compelling call to action that shows us how to create much more flexible and effective workplaces.' - Ellen Galinsky, President, Families and Work Institute, and author of Mind in the Making 'Alison Maitland and Peter Thomson have assembled an illuminating body of evidence in this robust and readable analysis of work transformation that deserves to become a classic in its field. Using case studies drawn from progressive employers, they spell out why this change is happening and how it can be achieved. Future Work is an essential tool for future management.' - Richard Donkin, author of The Future of Work 'Future Work lays out a compelling business case for flexibility that offers essential guidance for leaders grappling with a changing workforce, globalization and continuous advances in technology. The authors challenge conventional attitudes with a powerful rationale on how work can be accomplished with more precision and efficiency, while simultaneously reducing costs and offering employees more control over how they work.' - Michel Landel, CEO, Sodexo 'Future Work is an excellent guide with plenty of examples to inspire 21st-century managers to become real '2.0 leaders'. It will help them develop their skills to introduce flexibility in an uncertain and changing global environment in which individuals are selfmotivated and want to integrate their professional and personal lives. It is empowerment in practice!' - Nuria Chinchilla, Professor of Managing People in Organizations, IESE Business School 'The 19th century had an agrarian workforce, and the 20th century an industrial one. Now in the 21st century we have an information workforce, and as a result everything must change again. Maitland and Thomson provide invaluable insights into what future work will look like, and what organizations must do now to adapt to the imperatives of the mobile, global, knowledge economy.' - Murray D. Martin, Chairman, President & CEO, Pitney Bowes Inc.