By Danna Farhang
When Chris Ellsay looks into the future of the workplace, he doesn’t see the Jetsons.
“The rigid eight-hour-workday and hierarchical organization is disappearing,” says Ellsay, president of Workshift.com, a company that helps small businesses adjust to new workplace trends.
“There is fundamental change occurring.”
At the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation’s (OCRI) showcase last week, Ellsay gave hundreds of business owners and employees a taste of future office life.
The conference was a major networking opportunity for business owners and customers alike, who were given an opportunity to speak the language of high-tech, share handshakes and exchange business cards.
Ellsay says Ottawa, often called Silicon Valley North, is undergoing major changes because of the increased flexibility in workplace technology.
“Work can soon be done from anywhere,” he says. “Offices will be online and we’ll see multiple people working for multiple companies on a variety of projects. This is not a revolution but an evolution.”
Another important and inevitable trend will be the outsourcing of jobs.
This means that instead of remaining entirely self-sufficient, companies will focus on what they do best and contract the tasks they don’t do as well out to other businesses. For Ellsay, the efficiency in outsourcing is key to the future.
“It’s just a reality people will have to deal with. You have to get rid of the tasks that you’re not good at. But I don’t think this will mean less jobs for people,” says Matt Brown who attended the event with his company, On Path Business Solutions.
The biggest change however, will be the shift towards work outside the office.
Business will be done from the home, or even from the golf course, at anytime and in anyplace. Meetings will be held online. The nine-to-five workday, according to Ellsay is disappearing.
The elimination of the regular workday is a huge advantage, for self-described workaholic Barry Smith, .
“I’ll have my office in my palm and it will give me freedom. I can be playing golf in the afternoon but be in contact with the office at all times,” he says.
But some like Brown disagree. He doesn’t believe that getting rid of the nine-to-five workday is a good thing.
“There are a lot of drawbacks. Where do you draw the line between when you’re working and not working?” he asks.
Ellsay admits that these changes are scary concepts for employees who are used to the structure of the office.
“I think that a lot of people are not working standard jobs anymore,” he says. “But these kinds of changes can bring home life and family life back.”