The flexible future of working

The working day as we know it, in general lasting eight hours between 7am and 7pm and covering five days of the week, dates back 100 years. It has its origins in the industrial revolution, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life. At first the working day would range from 10-16 hours; the work week was six days and the use of child labour was common. A shorter working day as well as improved working conditions was raised by the International Workingmen’s Association at the Congress in Geneva in 1866, but the working week as we know it was not adopted in most countries until shortly after the first world war. There remain exceptions in developing countries and it depends on the type of work, but this structure has held for the majority of the global workforce since.

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Remote Working

For four weeks now, the majority of our firm has worked from home. Thanks to a fantastic head of IT, and significant investment in video conferencing last year, our work has continued without a blip. Each in our own homes we’re able to use our systems, securely locate files from our drives and speak to each other face to video-face whenever we need to.

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Digital Footprint

While you don’t see plumes of black smoke being released by the GAFAs (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon), you’d be wrong to assume they don’t have a significant environmental impact. Every search, click, or streamed video consume a huge amount of energy and sending a simple email has in reality a whole energy-intensive journey.

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