Intelligent CIO North America Issue 25 | Page 53

FEATURE : MODERN WORKPLACE

Learning to cope with the modern workplace and anticipate future changes

After clocking up more than half a century of benefiting from technological progress , Mark Bowen , Editorial Director of Lynchpin Media and Editor of Intelligent CIO North America , considers recent advancements in the modern workplace and outlines how he expects it to develop in the next few decades .

The modern workplace has changed beyond all recognition in the last few years – and I should know having worked in a variety of workplaces for more than three decades .

If there is one thing I can be sure of it ’ s that the advent of the pandemic changed the dynamics of the workplace overnight . When I was studying for a degree in history , I came across the expression that ‘ war is the mother of invention ’.
With whole workforces suddenly told they needed to operate from home , pretty much at the drop of a tin hat , technology played the part of a courageous calvary charging into a virtual battlefield to ensure businesses could continue to operate but in vastly different ways .
Technology companies truly kept the world on track and who knows what the implications of them failing to do so would have been .
At the time , I don ’ t think I fully understood it ’ s significance but if you adapt the phrase to read ‘ necessity is the mother of invention ’ it ’ s not too much of a stretch to understand how it relates to the whole pandemic saga .
Remote working was suddenly all the rage as businesses scrambled to supply their staff with the right equipment to work from home – all the time hoping that their broadband connections were secure from the threats of the nefarious activities of cybercriminals .
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