Digital free agents will liberate the office

Get ready for the rise of the digital free agents: talented employees, well connected with technical gizmos, but with compelling lives outside of work.

We have heard about the downshifters (people scaling down their work to concentrate on other things), the retirees who want to keep their hand in, the carers with family commitments (children and ageing parents), and the young people torn between their passions and the need to earn a living.

The digital free agent cuts across all the generational divides.

The term, which describes people who use technology to manage the blending of their two lives, has been coined by research firm Gartner in an attempt to help chief information officers (CIOs) prepare for the increasing demands on their networks.

Gartner's research director of emerging trends and technologies in Australia, Brian Prentice, says CIOs will need to mobilise within the next 12 to 18 months to make sure their systems and protocols can accommodate people whose working and personal lives are increasingly blended.

"It will be hard to draw a distinction between the personal and work computing environment," Prentice says.

Many organisations, wary of computer viruses and security breaches, restrict access to their company networks for people out of the office, but they may have to relax their guidelines and create exceptions to their rules for the new style of worker.

Just as important, these free agents, while at work, also need to access to their personal software and the websites they use in their personal lives. This could mean software for their personal digital assistants (to help manage the often complex demands of work and home) and mobile phone diaries, blogs, social networking sites and other things that may not usually be accessible because of the firewalls and protocols at work.

"The users will twist, bypass and break those rules to install their own software solutions at work," Prentice says.

So, the "locked down" computer system may have to be relaxed. You can't expect talented people to work for a company that bans them from downloading software for their personal organisers.

The rules governing the use and ownership of devices and software will have to be based on the premise that it will be mostly for personal rather than professional use.

The digital free agents will also force employers to redesign jobs so they can work their desired 20-hour weeks, says Prentice.

This does not mean part-time jobs or job sharing, but cutting and pasting job descriptions to create whole jobs that can be done in 20 hours each week.

"As this grows in popularity, the concept of part-time work being something less than a full-time role will disappear," he says.

"The primary benefit of supporting 20-hour job descriptions will be in the ability of an organisation to attract and retain skilled workers."

Published: 05 June 2007