The workplace is changing. Key technological changes including the arrival and proliferation of IoT devices, remote working, virtual and augmented reality, and generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) have meant the nature of how we do work is substantially different than it was in previous decades.
The traditional operating model for many businesses needs to be updated to take advantage of these trends. The future of work will increasingly require new levels of data literacy, understanding how to use tools like AI, and how to manage these workflows across a distributed environment.
Businesses and employees alike must adapt to these shifts in order to thrive in this rapidly evolving work environment, and staying at the forefront of this change is essential to ensure you do not fall behind your competitors.
Remote working is here to stay
The first major change affecting the nature of work is where the work itself actually takes place.
Remote and hybrid working models have become the new norm with an ever-expanding share of the workforce now clocking in and getting their work done virtually.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, between January and December 2019, some 12% of the UK workforce had worked at least one day from home in the previous week, according to a UK Parliament research briefing. The same research suggested that only 5% reported they predominantly worked from home.
The necessity created by the pandemic precipitated a ground shift towards remote working and looks to have had a more lasting impact on traditional working models in succeeding years.
In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic in September 2022, around 22% of the UK workforce said they worked at least one day at home in the previous week and around 13% worked from home exclusively, according to the Parliamentary research.
This has stuck, with data from the ONS reports revealing that, between 22 May and 2 June 2024, 14% of UK workers were fully remote, and just over a quarter (26%) had a hybrid working arrangement.
Although some business leaders have made statements indicating they plan on moving back to an in-person model, these figures reflect the fact that the attitudes of a significant proportion of employers and employees have fundamentally changed as a result of this experience.
As a result, businesses should be prepared to accept the fact that they need to invest in infrastructure that facilitates flexible working to accommodate employees both in the office and elsewhere.
A hybrid working model requires a variety of solutions, the first of which is a unified communications as a service (UCaaS) platform. UCaaS is a cloud-hosted service (usually by a single vendor) that offers a range of communication modes such as instant messaging, audio and video conferencing, email, as well as file-sharing.
These platforms can help simplify your organization's communication infrastructure and save you money, rather than using a combination of disjointed point services that need extra work to be integrated.
Project management tools have also become essential when trying to keep a distributed workforce on track to get their work done. They mean workers both in the office and at home can quickly see who is responsible for different tasks in the project and when these tasks need to be completed.
Security in the era of hybrid work
Remote work also introduces new cybersecurity threats such as using unsecured connections to access sensitive corporate environments. As a result, the use of VPNs has become widespread to mitigate the risk of employees exposing private data.
Device management is another key security concern for businesses operating on a hybrid model. Some businesses operate on a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) that allows employees to use personal devices when working.
These devices often lack the security measures that corporate devices are configured with and are thus far more vulnerable to cyber threats. In addition, if employees are not diligently managing their device’s software updates or antivirus protection they will be further at risk of compromise.
A distributed workforce also introduces observability challenges for IT admins. With a lack of IT oversight, personal or company devices may go unpatched or misconfigured for extended periods.
Potential security intrusions also may not be detected as quickly allowing intruders to cause more damage to the organization’s IT infrastructure in the long run.
With hybrid work set to be the model of choice for a wide number of businesses, ensuring you have robust cloud security, endpoint security, and network security is key, but this can’t account for the cyber hygiene of the employees using these tools.
As such, it is essential that firms continue to invest in cybersecurity awareness training to ensure employees are aware of the latest social engineering techniques that will be levied against them and best practices for handling private data.
AI is changing the work itself
AI has had a growing influence on business leaders’ thinking about how their organizations should operate since the recent explosion of enterprise interest in this technology.
As a technology, it can be almost universally applied across a wide range of workflows, automating routine tasks, generating content, and providing insights for informed decision-making.
Much has been made of the impacts AI-driven automation will have on the workforce, namely that AI systems will soon reach a level of maturity where they can replace a portion of the workforce.
These fears may have only become more real with the most recent trend in the AI industry: agents.
AI agents offer businesses the promise of fully autonomous AI systems that can plan, reason, and leverage internal tooling to independently complete tasks they are set by the user.
It is expected that these AI agents will proliferate across enterprises throughout this year, although a number of business leaders have stated that they see AI more generally as a force multiplier for employee productivity rather than a one-to-one replacement.
Instead, they have indicated that their main focus is teaching employees to use AI to get more done.
AI literacy has thus been a top concern for businesses in recent years as ongoing skills challenges limit their ability to properly harness the benefits the technology can bring.
But this will also require significant updates to any business’s IT infrastructure as AI workloads are expected to place unprecedented strain on corporate networks in terms of traffic and throughput.
Businesses need to not only future-proof their workforce but also their infrastructure to ensure their employees will be able to use AI to its full potential.
As such, they need to jointly invest in upskilling programs to mitigate the effects of the talent shortage and AI-ready infrastructure to make certain that they can keep pace with the rate of innovation AI is bringing to the workplace.
Every business is a technology company
Overall, technological advancements continuously shape the future of work with remote work and AI being two of the latest macro trends to shake up the business world.
Remote work, enabled by the cloud transformation, has redefined traditional office environments, which come with a series of infrastructure and security challenges that businesses need to adapt to.
Meanwhile, AI promises to revolutionize entire industries through automation, augmentation, and facilitating smarter decision-making across the enterprise.
AI isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about making work more engaging and meaningful for people.
Indeed, HP’s Work Relationship Index found that 78% of employees believe AI can reduce stress and improve the quality of their work, while 62% see it as a way to find greater satisfaction in their roles. When businesses invest in AI, they’re not just adopting new technology—they’re reshaping how their people work, collaborate, and grow.
The structure of your business and the work it does will continue to be reshaped as these technologies develop requiring constant adaptation to remain competitive and maximize the potential these innovations bring.
