by Brianna Crandall — October 7, 2013—Global facilities services provider ISS Group and the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies have released a new white book on the workplace of the future, New Ways of Working—The Workplace of the Future. Based on in-depth research and a global survey among more than 600 facilities management experts, the book’s release coincided with the opening of the International Facility Management Association’s (IFMA) World Workplace Conference and Expo in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Increasingly, global competition, the war for talents, the introduction of new technologies, and the greater focus on sustainability, among other factors, are changing how companies plan for and develop their workplace strategies and how the FM industry develops services to support them. The white book focuses on these challenges and how they will influence the role of facilities management.
“By definition, people are essential to workplaces. Without people, workplaces are simply places. The primary purpose of a workplace is to benefit the people in it, and benefitting the processes between them. Designing smart and cost effective workplaces, which will accommodate more collaboration and increase efficiency, is a major opportunity for most organizations,” said Jeff Gravenhorst, Group CEO, ISS A/S, speaking at the opening session of IFMA’s World Workplace Conference and Expo in Philadelphia.
“There is no doubt that the workplace as we know it is undergoing dramatic change, as it will increasingly become a place where people meet, socialize, build relations and have fun,” Mr. Gravenhorst continued. “ISS is committed to remain a market leader in developing tools, technologies and solutions for these challenges in collaboration with our customers and partners.”
New Ways of Working—The Workplace of the Future analyzes the boundaries that define traditional and future workplaces and organizations. Increasingly, employees work from the office, home and third workplaces; they work in private offices and open offices as well as from hot desks and touchdown points. Meanwhile, mobile devices are overtaking the laptop and the personal computer (PC) as our primary interfaces to the digital world.
“The accelerating pace of change is driving a wedge between managements’ vision of the workplace and the reality experienced by workers. Most workplaces are not designed to efficiently or effectively evolve as the dynamics of business change. Facility management professionals will have a key role to play in ensuring that workplaces are continuously aligned with core organizations’ changing needs,” said Jeffrey Scott Saunders, futurist, senior executive advisor, and head of strategy and innovation at Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies.
The new book builds upon the earlier findings from the ISS 2020 Vision: Scenarios for the Future of the Global Facility Management Industry, which concluded that future workplaces will change significantly over the coming decade. The findings of New Ways of Working were developed in partnership with IFMA through qualitative research and subject matter expert interviews, and several workshops with customers. The study also presents external expert assessments from the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies of the strategic themes shaping the future of work, the workforce and the workplace towards 2020.
The ISS Group was founded in Copenhagen in 1901 and has grown to become one of the world’s leading facilities services companies. ISS offers a wide range of services such as cleaning, catering, security, property and support services, as well as facilities management. The company has more than 530,000 employees and local operations in more than 50 countries across Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America and Pacific, serving thousands of both public and private sector customers.
The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (CIFS) supports better decision making by contributing knowledge and inspiration. CIFS’s objective is to advise public and private organizations by raising awareness of the future and emphasizing its importance to the present. CIFS identifies, analyzes and explains the trends that influence the future through research, seminars, presentations, reports and newsletters. Its work methods range from statistically based analyses and the identification of global trends to classifying the more inferential, subjective and emotional factors of the future. The Institute’s work is interdisciplinary, and the staff represents various fields of academic and professional competencies, including economics, political science, ethnography, psychology, public relations and sociology.
