April 25, 2018
April 25, 2018
Contributor: Christy Pettey
Accelerating technology cycles are impacting the workplace with unprecedented speed.
Application leaders and business executives haven’t traditionally spent much time contemplating how work will change in years to come. That’s largely because the IT organization has focused on operational excellence and because over the past three decades, the pace of change in the workforce has been relatively slow and predictable.
Circumstances have changed. The IT charter is expanding to include a larger focus on individuals, teams and overall business performance, and accelerating technology cycles are rapidly increasing the pace of change in work patterns.
“Digital business models and platforms are fundamentally restructuring how business is conducted. Cloud services are increasing the speed of technology change at a rate unthinkable in the days of on-premises deployment,” says Matt Cain, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “At the same time, the nature of work is being transformed with new work patterns such as the gig economy and flatter organization models, while artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to transform how work is done.”
Application leaders need to anticipate the future of work to understand what IT skills are needed to support the changes and ensure that technology aligns with future work patterns.
Cain highlights three overarching future work trends expected in developed nations in the 2022 – 2026 time frame, along with some of their key impacts.
No one knows exactly how this change will impact business, but one thing is certain — the digital dexterity of the workforce is the most effective mechanism to ensure that it can keep pace with and exploit vast amounts of change. Digital change will manifest itself in a number of ways, including:
The conversion of rich input patterns into data that can be readily processed by conventional software is at the heart of today's AI hype. AI will have a profound impact on how work is assigned, completed and evaluated. Cain suggests that although AI will provide a number of workplace trends in the coming years, workers are experiencing the impact of robobosses and smart workplaces right now.
Organizations will increasingly learn and borrow from freelance management and gig economy platforms, which dynamically match short-term work requirements directly with workers who have the relevant knowledge, experience, skills, competencies and availability. This will mean moving away from traditional structures to more fluid arrangements.
Read more: 6 Ways the Workplace Will Change in the Next 10 Years
Join your peers for the unveiling of the latest insights at Gartner conferences.
Recommended resources for Gartner clients*:
Anticipate and Exploit the Top 12 Future Work Trends
The Future of Work and Talent: Culture, Diversity, Technology
*Note that some documents may not be available to all Gartner clients.