As the adoption of mobile devices in the workplace continues to accelerate, the method in which people access and share information is rapidly changing. They demand access to their work applications, information, and colleagues wherever they are and on whatever device they choose. Organizations must cater to this environmental shift, ensuring they support their most important asset, their people, with the technology framework and business processes to excel in their work.


According to Saba, the "New World of Work" trends to watch include

1. The Move to Hyper-Specialization: Work will become more of a tradable asset. There will be more independent contractors and freelancers with "hyper-specialization", in addition to regular employees with generalized knowhow. Moreover, companies increasingly will rely on crowdsourcing to secure skills and services, allocate tasks, and complete projects.
2. Content Goes Increasingly Social and HD: People will increasingly consume information from an expanding range of content types. These include HD video streaming, live news feeds, documents, and VoIP. There will also be an increased demand for platforms that deliver the desired content globally. These include live web meetings, webinars, and interactive virtual classrooms optimized for low-bandwidth networks.
3. Heightened Power of "People Networks": Employees, partners, and customers will increasingly leverage social-enterprise platforms to remove silos and better collaborate, innovate, receive instant feedback, and learn like they never have before. Organizations need to remove the boundaries of the enterprise in order to really understand and leverage the collective intelligence and collaborative effectiveness.
4. Increased Demand for Leaders Everywhere: The continued globalization and increased growth in emerging markets will require companies to look for and develop international leaders at a greater rate. Companies will need professionals with global awareness, fluency, corporate acumen, and cultural understanding to achieve their business success. Technology is the key to enabling organizations, regardless of size, to perform business worldwide.
5. Social, Real-Time Collaboration and Gamification Join the Enterprise:These applications will become the fabric and inherent capability of many enterprise offerings this coming year. To fully support its workforce, companies need to embed social and collaboration capabilities into existing business processes. It's more than real-time access to data on devices; it's being able to analyze, collaborate, and engage with that data.
6. Increased Use of Modern People Management: Managing performance will move from an annual event to one with continuous 360 feedback, alignment, communication, development, and transparency. Anyone in a person's people network will also be able to provide constructive feedback to current projects or tasks, in addition to that person's goals. Gaps will be identified, with formal or informal development activities assigned by managers in real time.
7. Careers Changing Shape: Careers will become more fluid and less linear or ladder-shaped. People will have more jobs during their careers, with more careers during their work. This will require continuous learning, development, and acquisition of new skills anytime - whether employees are traveling abroad or sitting at their cubicle in the company's headquarters.

The changing workplace is the crux of Saba's vision for a "New World of Work" that the industry will see evolve in 2013 and in the years to come. No longer are business operations held within the confines of an 8-to-5 workday, onsite at the employers' offices or just amongst employees. This new world is social, transparent, and collaborative, a place where people are personally motivated to deliver quality, value-intensive work at anytime and on any platform.