A recent article highlighted four key developments that are being watched by demographers and employers alike, particularly as the economy starts to improve.   These dynamics will likely shape the growth of the flexible workforce in the next 10 years.  M Squared Consulting is tracking these trends and helping clients attain market leadership through the intelligent use of the high-end flexible workforce.

The shifts include:

1. Womenomics The book Womenomics talks about the fact that women are demanding more flexibility in their work. The authors argue that women have more power than ever to demand control over their schedules because companies that have proportionately more woman managers are also more profitable. Women want to work but gone are the days of 60-hour work weeks in the office, scrambling to find childcare and skipping the leisure time. The book offers many examples of how woman are leading this economy, and to stay competitive and profitable companies will need to offer women the flexibility they require.

    

2. Big Company AdoptionROWE stands for “results-only work environment” and is Best Buy’s workshifting program that says employees can work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done. An article in BusinessWeek does a great job of highlighting other results from ROWE-type initiatives.IBM has about 40% of their workforce with no official corporate office, and Sun Microsystems Inc. estimates that they saved $400 million over six years in real estate costs by letting employees work from anywhere. The biggest driver for these large organizations is usually the facilities cost when they don’t have to dedicate corporate space to each individual employee. But after implementing flexible working arrangements, companies soon also realize the benefit of higher employee job satisfaction.

   ROWE programs not only reduce costs but make for a more productive organization.

    

    

3. Gen Y Whatever you choose to call the newest generation (Gen Y, Millenials, Screenagers, etc.), they all grew up with the Internet. They’re more comfortable with technology and less accepting of corporate norms like 9-5 or suit and ties. Gen Y has been struggling at the hands of this economy but with the coming turnaround companies will have to employ flexible working arrangements in order to acquire and motivate this growing segment of the workforce.

    

4. Social Media The power and growth of social media over the last couple of years is astounding. The fact that so many of us are going to the Web to communicate and do business makes executives question traditional ways of doing business. We trust Wikipedia for information and use social media sites like Twitter to communicate as part of our jobs. This trend is only increasing and clearly demonstrates the acceptance of social media as a business communication tool.

    

As the workplace changes, savvy companies will continue to look to M Squared Consulting – and to the experts in its premier consulting network – for the strategies, programs, and human resources that will help them engage employees productively for years to come.

This entry was posted by jtarabini on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 4:53 pm in Contingent Workforce Management, Flexible Workforce, Project Professionals. Feel free to leave me a message about this post below.