Study: The Office of 2017 Will Use Biometrics – But Not Business Cards or Fax Machines

Career Climbers / 17th January 2017

New research undertaken by Fit Small Business has revealed trends around the office of the future. A thousand participants were simply asked which office technology had they not used in the last three months which we may consider standard issue. Insights on what will be key features in the office of 2017 were also gathered from futurists and industry leaders including Penelope Trunk, Martin Lindstrom, and Dr. James Canton.

Some of these findings included:

Only 18% of participants had used business cards in the previous three months, indicating that the use of online options such as LinkedIn are more popular for professional information sharing; 

25% had used a business landline in the same time period, indicating that most people are now using smartphones as a more convenient alternative for working on the go;

Unsurprisingly, fax machines were the least commonly used piece of office technology with only 14% saying they had featured in their office over the past three months. Only 9% of millennials (aged 18-34) had used them.

There were also some interesting insights offered by industry leaders: Martin Lindstrom, futurist, branding consultant, and New York Times bestselling author offered that work-life boundaries will become a thing of the past, saying “With the rise of technology, work and private life have become blurred. We can receive our work emails anytime of the day or night on our smartphones, and we feel like we must respond immediately, whether we are just waking up or eating dinner.” Penelope Trunk, entrepreneur and writer, thinks that coffee is on the way out: “everyone will use pharmaceuticals as a more customized solution.”

Others interviewed mentioned that we will no longer see the use of passwords, with biometrics being favored as the most secure alternative, and that the office of the future will be entirely open plan, encouraging a collaborative, teamwork-centered atmosphere.

To view the study results in full, click here!