We are witnessing the biggest revolution in the way we work since the industrial revolution. Who would have guessed at the growth of the Internet and electronic technology even five years ago?

What’s more the much faster and cheaper processes involved have knowledge and policy built into their rules to ensure compliance.

Just take one simple example most of us hate doing – expense claims. Imagine filling in a form online that will not let you miss completing information, that supplies help on policy and won’t let you break rules without the right justification. No longer is there any need for long authorisation processes.

Now extend this to all processes. Administration and paper passing almost vanish. Managers spend their time doing what they should be doing – planning. They can outsource all non-core tasks using seamless connectivity of the Internet.

Instead of engaging one person on a traditional employment contract they can break up tasks into schedules and projects and employ people to do these specific tasks at these specific times. Work will not be about going to an office but about completing tasks and achieving outputs not just for one employer but for a number (maybe as many as twenty).

This sounds like all the power is in the hands of the company but in fact the power shift goes the other way. As an employee (or supplier selling your skills) you will be able to access the information published on the company’s website about tasks that need doing and choose to bid for the work or not.

Instead of having to work for a company or person you don’t like you will have a much greater choice The onus will be on companies to create environments that are attractive.

The implications of all this are huge:

• The manager’s role will be about being proactive, planning and setting the right conditions for people to perform either directly or remotely through video conferencing and teleworking.
• Current employees are likely to see this initially as greater insecurity and frightening. But being employed by ten companies instead of one spreads the risk if things go wrong.
• Potential employees will need to hone their skills and build transferable skills. Life long learning will become a necessity.
• New work groupings will develop. Instead of the company being the focus of sharing knowledge, people will share more through groups of common interest and profession.
• Organisations will need to build their capabilities to train and induct people quickly and easily using online learning to help them.

Is this all a pipe dream and way off in the future you may ask? In fact it is starting to happen now at somewhere I guarantee not far from you. For example:

• Retail workers often work for more than one retailer and look around for the best rates and conditions. Companies can only get enough staff through flexible scheduling.
• Dell Computers estimate their workforce would have to increase from 15,000 to 80,000 if they had to employ everyone directly on traditional contracts.
• Companies outsource anything from accounts, training, logistics, customer service, IT pensions, car schemes, to office facilities and catering. More and more suppliers bid for this work through net auctions.
• Consulting is the fastest growing profession
• The average length of time with any one company has already shrunk dramatically from lifetime employment of fathers or grandfathers to the four to five years of most of us.

Only the companies that embrace this revolution will survive and prosper. The future is here now.

Yesterday

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value too us."

Western Union internal memo 1876.

Tomorrow

There are now 376,500,000 cellular phone users worldwide. The prediction by 2003 is that there will be 1,073,100,000

Spending online is predicted to grow from 2.9 billion euros in Europe in 1999 to 7.6 billion this year to 64.4 billion by 2005.