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Future Work

How Businesses Can Adapt and Thrive In The New World Of Work

Palgrave Macmillan

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiv
  2. Time for change

    • Alison Maitland, Peter Thomson
    Pages 1-15
  3. How work has evolved

    • Alison Maitland, Peter Thomson
    Pages 16-32
  4. Turning convention on its head

    • Alison Maitland, Peter Thomson
    Pages 33-48
  5. Why it makes business sense

    • Alison Maitland, Peter Thomson
    Pages 49-64
  6. Leaders of the future

    • Alison Maitland, Peter Thomson
    Pages 65-78
  7. Changing workplaces

    • Alison Maitland, Peter Thomson
    Pages 79-93
  8. Culture is critical

    • Alison Maitland, Peter Thomson
    Pages 94-109
  9. How to break free of the old model

    • Alison Maitland, Peter Thomson
    Pages 110-127
  10. Putting it into practice

    • Alison Maitland, Peter Thomson
    Pages 128-146
  11. Looking over the horizon

    • Alison Maitland, Peter Thomson
    Pages 147-156
  12. Back Matter

    Pages 157-178

About this book

The way we work is changing in the Internet age. The new majority of the workforce, women, Generation Y, the over-50s, as well as growing numbers of men share a need for greater control and choice about where, how and when they work. This is a guide to the skills you will need and the challenges you will face in the 21st century world of work.

Reviews

'Every manager who cares about the future success of their organisation should read this book. It's not only very readable but presents some cogent arguments that all organisations should give serious consideration to.' - David Pardey, Edge

"This book provides challenging and persuasive examples of the need to change and is recommended as a wake-up call to the corporate world." - Management Today

'Future Work sounds seductive. But very few organizations have actually changed the way they really do work. Maitland and Thomson have painted a comprehensive and compelling picture of what's possible, going way beyond the typical hype about technology and GenY. And they've dug deeply to report many very human stories about how the future of

work is happening today, and what it takes to transform the workplace. If you read this book and then put it aside without changing the way you manage, you'll wind up watching the future of work from the sidelines.' James P. Ware, Executive Director, The Future of Work unlimited

'An invaluable resource for anyone who needs to increase employee productivity and reduce costs, and wants to do so in a way which is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable.' Stephen Leonard, Chief Executive, IBM UK and Ireland

'Future Work lives up to its title it presents a compelling view of how work is being transformed in ways that benefit the employee and employer alike. More than that, it is a compelling call to action that shows us how to create much more flexible and effective workplaces.' Ellen Galinsky, President, Families and Work Institute, and author of Mind in the Making

'Alison Maitland and Peter Thomson have assembled an illuminating body of evidence in this robust and readable analysis of work transformation that deserves to become a classic in its field. Using case studies drawn from progressive employers, they spell out why this change is happening and how it can be achieved. Future Work is an essential tool for future management.' Richard Donkin, author of The Future of Work

'Future Work lays out a compelling business case for flexibility that offers essential guidance for leaders grappling with a changing workforce, globalization and continuous advances in technology. The authors challenge conventional attitudes with a powerful

rationale on how work can be accomplished with more precision and efficiency, while simultaneously reducing costs and offering employees more control over how they work.' Michel Landel, CEO, Sodexo

'Future Work is an excellent guide with plenty of examples to inspire 21st-century managers to become real '2.0 leaders'. It will help them develop their skills to introduce flexibility in an uncertain and changing global environment in which individuals are selfmotivated and want to integrate their professional and personal lives. It is empowerment in practice!' Nuria Chinchilla, Professor of Managing People in Organizations, IESE Business School

'The 19th century had an agrarian workforce, and the 20th century an industrial one. Now in the 21st century we have an information workforce, and as a result everything must change again. Maitland and Thomson provide invaluable insights into what future work will look like, and what organizations must do now to adapt to the imperatives of the mobile, global, knowledge economy.' Murray D. Martin, Chairman, President & CEO, Pitney Bowes Inc.

About the authors

ALISON MAITLAND is a writer, speaker and conference moderator specialising in leadership, gender and work. A former long-serving Financial Times journalist, she is co-author of the prize-winning book Why Women Mean Business. She has been researching and writing about corporate culture and the changing workforce since the late 1990s, including eight years as FT Management Writer. She is Director of The Conference Board's Council for Diversity in Business and a Senior Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Management at Cass Business School, London. A frequent conference speaker, she also regularly contributes articles to the Financial Times and other media.

PETER THOMSON is an acknowledged authority on the changing world of work and its impact on organisation culture and management practices. He is a regular speaker on the future of work and, as a director of Wisework Ltd, advises clients on creating a corporate culture which supports new working practices. He is a Visiting Executive Fellow at Henley Business School where he was Director of the Future Work Forum for 16 years and he is now Research Director for the Telework Association. He spent the majority of his professional career in HR/Personnel and was head of the HR function in Digital Equipment when the company pioneered new working practices.

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 49.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access