The future of work - understanding the role of technology

The twentieth century has seen many major changes in the nature of work and its role in people's lives. Organisational change has been driven by dramatic changes in the economic and social climate during this period This is happening at an increasingly rapid rate as we enter the new century. This paper reviews current trends in the world of work. It will focus our the increasing dispersal of the workforce and how communications technology makes possible working arrangements which were previously unthinkable. BT aims to design future products and services which address the real needs of people working in the future. This is being tackled by building up a fundamental understanding of the issues affecting relationships between individuals and organisations, and the potential impact of computer-mediated communications technology on these relationships. This paper focuses on the work that has been done to understand the issue of trust a key element of the way that people relate to each other at work. This research has culminated in the definition of a theoretical model of trust which has been used to analyse two particular practical studies - a long-term flexible working trial and a series of trials with innovative desktop conferencing tools.