Gartner - 20 hour job by 2015

30May07

Sometimes I believe that analyst houses create new terminology for the sole purpose of obfuscating their customers in the hope that this will generate new income.

Today’s new buzz-phrase is: ‘Digital Free-Agency’ - as coined by Gartner today. In case you were wondering this describes:

how people are blending professional and personal computing requirements in an integrated environment.

Gartner continue to say:

As the need to employ skilled staff from demographics unable or unwilling to work 40 hours a week increases, Gartner believes the ‘20-hour-per-week job description’ will emerge - a role that can be successfully accomplished in half the normal time.

At first I laughed out loud about this. I have heard people moot that technology has enabled people to work fewer hours as they can be more flexible in the way they work - as yet I am still waiting to hear from anyone who can verify this.

However, Gartner did raise an interesting point. They believe that people will be spending less time at work but using technology more in all the other aspects of their lives. It will be very hard to draw a distinction between the personal and work computing environment.

Does this mean that I agree with Gartner’s prediction about people working fewer hours - absolutely not. However, I do agree when they say that IT organisations must be cognisant of the ways in which people use IT throughout their day and adapt their policies to complement it.

 

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