How will the world of work have changed by 2020? That was the question I and other attendees were invited to consider at a panel discussion organised by City University's Centre for Performance at Work last night.
Not surprisingly, the relentless advance of technology was at the heart of the debate. One panellist doubted whether large organisations could continue to exist in their current form, and whether they would eventually be replaced by loose networks of workers. Another felt we would come to re-evaluate technology and the usefulness of its demands on our time, and harness it more efficiently to do fewer things better.
Yet another embraced the raw potential of change and access to information as a force for advancement (you can watch the mind-boggling but slightly terrifying presentation he showed us here – I'd like to know where all the stats are from but it is thought-provoking if nothing else).
The thought that stuck with me most, though, was of one panellist who expressed the hope that for more people work would come to be more about personal expression than just paying the bills.
Later at home I switched on the TV to find BBC1 tackling unemployment in two somewhat different ways. First came Famous, Rich and Jobless in which moderately well-known people pretended to be on the dole (why the corporation feels viewers can't understand society's problems without the insight of third-rate celebrities is anyone's guess).
Thankfully, that was followed by Jobless, a beautifully made film by the Bafta-winning documentary maker Brian Woods about ordinary people struggling to cope with redundancy. From the workers and families who occupied a Visteon factory in protest at the brutal axing of their jobs and redundancy pay, to a Scottish journalist cast on the scrapheap and the IT sales manager desperately trying to put a brave face on his lack of opportunities, Jobless painted a simple but powerful picture of the dignity we are ultimately afforded by our work.
It seemed to me that for all the seismic technological and economic changes going on around us, how we actually feel about our work is still crucial. Hopefully we won't lose sight of that in 10 years' time or beyond. Do you agree?
