Microsoft moves into a new world of work

This is a daring move.  For several years now the company has received accolades for its ‘top employer’ status.  So why change a good thing?  It all comes down to Microsoft’s commitment to the ‘new world of work,’ a philosophy that Microsoft has been thinking and communicating about for some time.  In fact, it informs much of the company’s product development strategy.  Therefore, it only makes sense that the company practices what it preaches.  

So what is the new world of work all about?  Living in contemporary society means participating in a multi-faceted social reality, where work and personal lives overlap to such a degree that at times they are indistinguishable.  Gone is the structured ordered civility that heralded the 1950s, replaced with a constantly shifting and evolving social paradigm.  Gone are the days of sitting behind the same desk for 50 years; plugging away at the same tasks day in and day out. This is a good thing. The new world of work environment is as foreign to this idea as it gets.

This new zeitgeist can be traced back to the Orwell-esque year of 1984, when the personal computer was first born and launched at the mass consumer market. People born after 1984 have never lived without a computer; they’ve always taken the hard earned benefits of global digital sophistication and communication in their stride – and now they’re entering the workforce.