Analyst Corner
April 25, 2021

Future Workforce Study 2016

Dell and Intel have teamed up to create their newest Future Workforce Study 2016, which reveals how people around the world feel about how technology is shaping the workplace. Collaborating with Penn Schoen Berland (PSB), a series of online interviews were conducted across seven target industries, with adults who work more than 35 hours a week. South Africa was included in the study and is grouped with Europe.

Key study highlights:#1 Employees expect to work in a smart office in the near future

  • Today’s office is not smart enough; however, workers expect to be working in smart offices in the near future. Employees globally feel their offices are not advanced enough and desire an environment that uses data to make “smarter” decisions about employee habits like temperature, lighting etc. Workers are not only ready for businesses to implement the latest technologies to make their offices smarter, they expect it to happen within the next five years. Specifically, 44% of employees worldwide feel that their workspace isn’t smart enough, and more than half expect to be working in a smart office within the next five years.
  • This expectation is highest among the younger workforce, with 69% expecting to be in a smart office within the next five years. The consequences for not meeting these expectations is also greater for the millennial workforce, with 42% saying they would quit a job with substandard technology and 82% saying workplace technology influences what role they would take. Further, a majority of workers place an emphasis on functional benefits with 63% of millennials and 55% of older workers (over 35 years old) indicating they would rather have high-tech perks, such as augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) and Internet of Things (IoT) than low-tech perks like ping pong, free food etc.

#2 The way we communicate will continue evolving away from face-to-face meetings

  • The way we communicate will be the next thing to change. The influx of new technology in the workplace has affected how employees communicate, collaborate and work more efficiently. In fact, with many employees believing that face-to-face meetings will be obsolete soon, the norms of office communication could be the next major change impacting the workplace.
  • While 57% of global employees still prefer to have face-to-face conversations with colleagues, half of global employees and three in five millennials think better communication technology and remote teams will make face-to-face conversation obsolete in the near future. In fact, a majority of workers in China, India and South Africa already do not prefer face-to-face conversations and instead use collaborative technologies to communicate with colleagues. Within this evolution, 79% of millennials believe workspaces are more collaborative than they used to be, and over 70% of millennials feel that advanced tech/smart offices are crucial to a collaborative, productive and efficient work environment.
  • Further, employees noted that virtual-sharing allows for collaboration with colleagues while remote capabilities would be the most beneficial technology integration into their office lives.

#3 Virtual reality and artificial intelligence adoption is growing

  • Virtual reality and artificial intelligence could impact the workplace sooner than we think. Cutting-edge technologies including virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence may soon play a pivotal role in how we work, and employees are expecting these technologies to impact their lives soon.
  • While millennials are the keenest for this convergence, interestingly it isn’t just the younger workforce who are looking forward to the introductions of these technologies into their working lives. Two thirds (66%) of the global population would be willing to use AR/VR products in their professional lives, while 46 percent believe the technologies will improve productivity within their individual role. Just under two thirds (62%) also believe that the introduction of artificial intelligence will make their job easier, while half (50%) say AI will lead to more productivity in the workplace, with 30% listing the ability to automate complex or repetitive tasks as the major immediate advantage.

#4 Remote employment continues to grow, given the advancement of enabling technologies

  • Remote employment allows global workers to focus equally on productivity and quality of life benefits, revealing the range of advantages that flexible working provides. Evolving technology has already had a huge impact on modern employee lifestyles. Technology has allowed people to change their lifestyles and, in turn, this has impacted their work styles and preferences. With these changes, employers are offering more flexible work arrangements to keep up with this evolution to cater to the mobile worker.
  • Over half (52%) of employees already work outside of a traditional office at least one day a week, while 18% are working from a public location every week. Employees are also seeing the advancement of technologies to better enable these new working arrangements, with respondents listing advanced security protection as the single most important technology to be implemented into their workplace.

Future Workforce Study 2016 Report Dell and Intel have teamed up to create their newest Future Workforce Study 2016, which reveals how people around the world feel about how technology is shaping the workplace. Collaborating with Penn Schoen Berland (PSB), 3801 online interviews were conducted across nine different markets between April 05 and May 03, 2016. The report primarily analyzes adults who work more than 35 hours a week and work in one of seven target industries: Education, Government, Financial Services, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Media & Entertainment, and Retail.