Wave goodbye to the nine to five, and say hello to virtual enterprise

Within a decade millions of workers will be at home juggling their careers with caring for children and older relatives, Britain's leading management institute forecast yesterday. Dreams of a future when technological advances would liberate us from the daily drudge and allow more time for leisure appear to be fading, with futurologists predicting less talk about "work-life balance" and more about "work-life integration". A report on the nature of employment in 2018 predicts an exodus from the traditional workplace caused partly by environmental pressure to reduce the carbon footprint of commuting and partly by the demographic pressure of an ageing population, with fewer employees able to avoid looking after older relatives, leading to a blurring of boundaries between family and career. In a list of scenarios drawn up by the Chartered Management Institute and launched at a seminar in London yesterday by Sir John Sunderland, chairman of Cadbury Schweppes, companies were warned to prepare for a range of more remote possibilities, including a world under cyber attack, the use of holograms for communication between staff, and controlling employee behaviour by implanting microchips in their brains. More probable scenarios included a polarisation of businesses, with large corporations consolidating global control and becoming more powerful than the governments of some big countries.