The successful business of the future will provide its employees with flexible and tailored support for work-life integration, according to a UK report on the likely working world of 2018.

Global business will experience a big shift towards virtual community-based enterprises as the nature of business models and structures change over the next decade, the UK Chartered Management Institute's report Management Futures: The World in 2018 describes. And as organisations open up to the outside world and become more community-based they will also become more employee-centric - especially those built on the productivity of talented employees - with more "non traditional" employment arrangements becoming the norm.

The working population will be more diverse, quicker to change jobs and far more demanding of its employers and what it expects from the working world. Work-life balance will be superseded by "work-life integration".

Part Time Online (www.parttimeonline.com.au ) director Liana Gorman said the report showed the importance of flexibility as key for successful management of a working world that is probably just 10 years away. With virtual offices and diverse employment - rather than a traditional linear career - becoming the standard for many workers, organisations will have to become more adept at managing remote workforces and providing working arrangements attuned to employees' lifestyles if they are to remain competitive over the next 10 years, Ms Gorman said.

"As people's lives become more integrated in the work/life balance, emotional intelligence will determine how successful employers are," she said.

"It will become more about life in its entirety, not just about this work/home block divide."

The study, which consulted a range of business leaders, futurologists and academics, looks at how the working world is likely to change in the next 10 years and what organisations ought to do to prepare for, and take advantage of, these scenarios.

Changes in work expectations will require leaders and managers to develop a new range of skills with an emphasis on emotional and spiritual intelligence and they will often be required to manage virtual teams, working in geographically diverse and remote locations, the report says. It also predicts that:

"Talent markets will become more complex and more diverse with regard to age, generational issues, culture etc, and will require more sophisticated recruitment processes. The proportion of employees coming from abroad will increase. Complexity in working life will lead to workers having greater anxiety and stress levels that managers will have to address regularly. Talented people will be demanding a great deal of personal control, leading from a power shift from employers to employees. The best talents will mix work with lifestyle."

The trend to lifestyle emphasis and power shift from employer to employee is already well underway in Australia as the latest statistics from Part Time Online show. Of those job seekers conducting job searches on Part Time Online during June: 45.9% were looking for work from home arrangements; 31.4% were looking to work part/time; another 17.9% were looking for either casual, temporary or contract arrangements.

Ms Gorman added: "Flexible working will become the norm. As the report suggests, the managers who focus on output of work rather than being fixated on the input of time and resources, will be the most successful in the future working world."

"The trend has already begun. Those employers who embrace flexible working now will have a head start on the competition as the talent market becomes even tougher to manage over the next few years."
 

About Part Time Online: With over 30% of the working population choosing to work part-time or flexible hours, the general shift in the workplace continues to move towards a more flexible employment approach. Part Time Online has identified the need to introduce a technology platform that would support and encourage that move through a comprehensive community environment.

As more people are looking to work flexible hours and employers seek to employ part-time, job share, casual and flexible staff, Part Time Online was created as the community site to bring the two together through a simple and direct contact process.

For more information see www.parttimeonline.com.au.

Media Contacts: Liana Gorman, director, Part Time Online 02 9369 1133 or 0423 451145