83% Of Business Leaders Anticipate Significant Changes In Future Workplace Configuration

• Higher investments in trust-based and socially networked workplaces

Most business leaders anticipate significant changes about the workplace of the future, according to a report made by JBA and commissioned by workspace solutions provider Regus. However, only 61% of them claim to have achieved successful change in the past, a gap which tripled between 2006 and 2008. The report was intended to capture the business leaders" perceptions about what the workplace of the future may look like and was created based on interviews with a sample of 1,130 managers.

The report commissioned by Regus also revealed that those organizations that financially out-performed their competitors were implementing radical and efficient measures. Such organizations are grouped into two distinct areas: trust-based workplaces and socially networked workplaces.

The concept of trust-based workplaces involves giving employees full temporal and special autonomy and allowing them to choose when and where to work. On the other hand, workplaces based on social networking involve encouraging employees to collaborate with likeminded people, well beyond the constraints of the traditional workplace. This significantly increases the employees" capacity to innovate and enhances competitiveness and creativity.

• More business leaders see their employees as customers

Increasingly numerous business leaders see their employees as customers whom they collaborate with and this presents tremendous opportunities to adapt and improve new workplace strategies and prove the added value.

"Today"s economic turmoil has completely torn up the workplace rule book. In 10 years time, the way we work today will be as alien as the horse and cart is to the automobile. This report, based on the collective insights and wisdom of more than a 1,000 business leaders will help organisations identify the workspace changes required to gain competitive advantage," said Regus CEO Mark Dixon.

"From our report, it is clear that business leaders confidence in their ability to change does not match their expectations of the change to come. Constant change is not new but businesses are clearly wrestling with a far broader and more sustained set of challenges, with the associated increases in risk and uncertainty, than ever before. As one put it to me, we find ourselves in a "white water" world," said JBA CEO John Blackwell.

"Yet, challenging times call for radical responses. Moving to a trust based, social networked and integrated workplaces will ensure staff are as agile as possible, help recruit and retain the best talent, optimise the deployment of the new and emerging technology, and above all, dramatically reduce organisational costs - by as much as 40% in many cases. All of these were substantial concerns raised by our report," Blackwell added.