Working is what we do–Most people spend the majority of their lifetime on. Everything that surrounds us is the effect of others’ work. When we need something, we usually pay for it and the money goes to those who have produced (worked)that thing. This very basic relationship will not probably change in the future, as it has not changed since the beginning of humanity. What changes is the way how people work, the tasks they perform, their relationships with other people in the workplace, as well as the overall surrounding.
Things are changing everyday in the business world:- the way companies act and organized. Fashionable terms and concept1 (buzzword) have been created to cope with the challenges of the new coming era : the “Knowledge era”2. As knowledge will be the central element of the new era, the employee and his workplace will be the focusing main attention. The era main characteristics, which make it truly different from the past, will be the way ; speed of economy and business. Global Market is becoming a reality and will only increase so in the future.
Competition among existing players is getting fiercer and competitors enter the marketplace from anywhere in the world. Continuous innovation will be a must because the new era3 focus on mass customization which require new capabilities and skills:4 Information Technology5 is a survival kit of the company. In addition, Telecommunication play a vital part, it created a truly global village in communication matters6. Hence an organization, which performs works in today’s manner, will not cope, the workplace must be radically redefined.
Global competition and customers’ requirements created pressure on the organization and force it to adapt – to change. At the backbone of this evolution is Information Technology, which supports and makes it possible to undertake these changes. At the centre, there are the individual workplaces. Workplace is not only the physical environment 7, it means the whole organization : 1)corporate culture, 2)lifetime education ; training are components of the workplace too. The employee and his job are the central elements in such a constellation.
The company’s future depends on how it behaves8 simply because the firm is the people who work there and if they are not the right people on the right places, they will probably start making errors leading to a bad end. Different organizations have different cultures, depending on the business they are in and the tradition. Employees have to learn and adapt this culture which might be a long process, but necessary to get through. It is a component of the workplace as it helps a lot with the day to day works.
In a fast changing environment it is necessary to monitor (and to anticipate) changes, to analyze them and see how they affect the organization. Sometime it means to change the way people work by continuous & lifetime education. First, it is the actual tasks of the employee11. Second concerns interpersonal skills12. Thirdly is about use of new information technology. Learning will increasingly become a duty of each employee, on an equal basis to that day to day work. Without appropriately educated & skill people an organization will simply lose on the marketplace.
Therefore, education becomes an integral component of the workplace in a broader sense. General trends are toward an ever-bigger concern about the health of the employee and everything related to ergonomic. Information Technology, will become increasingly user friendly and will give the possibility of greater access to greater range of data. The big question arising is about the location14, whether we will start working at home? Whether we will still work in today’s environment ? whether today’s jobs are still the same & available in a couple of years time ?
