Blog

Updated July 27th 2023

Do you know what the workplace of the future will look like?
I don’t, but I do however know one thing, it will be very different to the workplaces we see nowadays.

Many would argue that more changes have taken place in the world of how we work in the past 5-10 years than had in the previous 100 years. There is new technology, new approaches to management & new roles in the workplace than ever could have been imagined in the past.

I was present at a talk Bob Savage, MD and Vice President of EMC Ireland, gave at a recent conference (National Stakeholders Conference on Science Education).

EMC Ireland in Cork is their largest manufacturing site outside the US, spanning 600,000 square feet, with 28 business functions and 44 nationalities on site speaking 26 languages. Bob leads this Centre of Excellence’s team of highly skilled people serving the global market. Bob said, “the ability to build relationships with customers, to relate to others, is one of the differentiators for employees and companies of the future. Another differentiator is a culture which encourages people to have an openness and ability to transform their skills, with a compulsion towards life-long learning”. Many people don’t see their job as a place to learn. However, in another interview Bob did last year, he was asked what he looked for in people working for EMC. He said, “The ICT area is a fast moving environment and people need to be able to handle and embrace change.” He also mentioned that he looks for a team of dynamic players and career minded people with integrity and passion who think outside the box.

Therefore, the more responsibility we take to learn within and outside the workplace, the better our chances for success are. If you have read previous articles we have written, you will know that we see one big happy connection between learning, change and relating to others. In my mind, learning in the workplace is best looked at with a sense of wonder. The wonder at the extent of endless possibilities that could be explored when we are open to change and willing to challenge how things have always been done.

What’s more, this is further charged with more possibilities because everything we learn at work about embracing change and relating to others and ourselves, can feed into our personal lives, creating even more positive relationships with our family and friends for example. John Henry Newman once said, “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” And well, if Bob and I agree with him, then he must be right 😉