Anyone who likes to keep some distance between work and home may find the latest predictions from the Future Foundation quite hard to bear. According to its chief executive, Paul Flatters, by 2020:
"Our bodies will be our office – we will carry our workplace with us at all times."
This seems a rather sinister way to say that new technology will enable us to work away from the office, but could be apt given the nightmarish potential of his organisation's predictions.
In 15 years' time, we're told, employees won't sit from nine to five in a stuffy office. Instead, the working day will stretch from eight in the morning to 11 at night. Non-work activities will be fitted in during the day when convenient, but the most ambitious professionals will become "always on" workers and companies will put more emphasis on performance measurement to ensure we're actually working.
In fact the only bright note seems to be the transformation of the workplace into "more a site for collaborative and social interactions than for work activity itself". In fact, in some offices the transformation already seems to be under way.
