The Future of Work. Will it be the Death of the Office?
After the events of COVID-19 will the office become obsolete due to more employees getting comfortable with working from home. Or will there be alternatives in the future?
What affect has COVID-19 had on UK jobs?
In the UK the number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 has nearly reached 4 million, with the number of deaths just over 120,000. The UK population has been told to work-from-home since the start of the UK spike in the pandemic. This massive shock on the UK caused companies to fire, furlough and reduce their staff. This harsh pandemic also cost countries billions. The UK had a record 32.9% fall in GDP in the second quarter of 2020, when the pandemic had hit the country the hardest and the country was urged to “stay at home”. The UK had a £127 billion spend to help fund the public, with £72 billion to help the furlough scheme. This economic crisis, had a major effect on people’s jobs, creating a kind fo “Scarring Effect”, so that in the future, graduates will find it harder to recover from this financial crisis.
Graduating into a recession makes it hard enough just to find a job. But it can also leave “wage scars”, where the lower starting pay stats with you throughout your career” (Lee, 2020)
Death of the Office?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people have become accustomed to working from home. This new way, more mainstream way of working in recent times could be come the new way of work. It’s can be seen as more attractive to people, due to the opportunities it creates for the companies and the employees working; Working from home allows people to work longer hours, to be able to be flexible within their household and work life, they can also save money. To companies these opportunities could increase productivity and overall well being within the company. However, with the increase of this work-from-home approach there are some challenges; the introduction of A.I and Robotics could see some people loose jobs, the loss of “Tacit Knowledge”- could lead to people becoming isolated with the loss of the “know-how” within office life, and would managers and directors be getting the most out of the employees or would a company become lazy via technology. Will the office be in the future or will a technology based distant “ZOOM” call be the way forward?
Portfolio Career.
Going into a portfolio means exchanging full-time employment for independence. Is a portfolio career the future for many employees and graduates?
The portfolio that people will create will be a collection of different bits and pieces of work for different clients. Creating a widespread of skills, allows a person to path their career and enjoy flexibility. Similar to the work-from-home strategy it is becoming more and more common in recent times, not only due to the pandemic but because of the attraction it has to young graduates.
Future?
The future of work is far away, and the building process is only in its early stages. The death of the office? Work from Home? Portfolio? Robotics? Not one person can predict the future of work, but in an ideal world there will be a mixture of these mediums. To lose many of the aspects in each of these mediums would take a massive chunk out of the employment and work sector of life. All of these options have aspects of each other within. The office has some people working from home and working in the office, while using technology to help, with different employees with different skills, from different backgrounds. They all interlink in some way or the other. So the future of work is too far away to predict but we know that it will be different to what we know it as today.
