First Written on April 21, 2000 Revised and Updated Friday, December 19, 2008 Demands of the new workplace The traditional workplace in the past was fairly limited in its demands. No doubt, some of the work might have been physically demanding or stressful. The workplace is changing fast. The expectations level of employers has gone up sky high. While the competitive pressures are forcing employers to make such demands, it should be borne in mind that changing the mindsets and attitudes of employees cannot be achieved overnight or by aiming high. If your organization is at kindergarten level, how can you hope them to achieve doctoral level overnight? The challenges of modern workplace are very high and there are too many complex problems. The need is speed with accuracy. Time is money and along with tide it does not wait for any man. Speed in designing new products, manufacturing and then delivering it, followed by efficient after sales service has become mandatory. Technologies are getting outdated much faster. Being first with new product or market or service allows one to cream the market before competition arrives on the scene. It allows one to develop a market niche and defend from a high ground. Your learning curve gets shorter. Time wasters will be identified and eliminated by their own colleagues rather than management. Reengineering or Continuous improvement has to be practiced by all organizations, whether big or small. New product development will not follow the conventional route. A team of people from marketing, engineering, design manufacturing, costing and finance will have to work together in a specified time frame to come out with new products. All you need is commercial sense and vision, which is mandatory at that level of management. Amazingly, most R & D people get carried away by their knowledge of science and technologies but have poor commercial sense. Superior technologies may result in superior products but may not necessarily gain market acceptance. Majority of sales people neither know their own products well nor understand its application by their customers. There are too many companies meeting the "needs".       Customer service means Reliability, Dependability, Responsiveness, Fast delivery, Commitment and Caring 110% or more. Organizations will be flatter. Flexible working hours will become more popular. More people will work from homes due to availability of faster means of communications and save on commuting time and costs. Organizations will be more decentralized with decision making being taken at lower levels. Organizations that distribute the wealth created, fairly and equitably, will succeed in the long run. For achieving this, education and training are most crucial. Organizations that do not train their people adequately will wither away and by the time they realize, it will be too late. The process of learning is continuous and all organizations will need to have basic training programs backed by good faculty. You need persons of above average intelligence, who can relate well with workers and who know the concerned subject very well. Knowledge is one thing but ability to communicate and impart knowledge to not so educated but intelligent people is completely different. The workers may not be formally educated but most of them are reasonably intelligent. The focus should also be at worker level and not only at management staff. All existing workers should be trained to the level of college graduates. In future the minimum entry level of education for a worker may be at graduate level. The term "Blue Collar Worker" may disappear completely. Every worker must be self- motivated and posses self-esteem to a reasonable extent. The above is a frightening situation for all of us. We have to face reality and look at the problems as opportunities. Organizations and entrepreneurs who are able to achieve the above will succeed and others who cannot will be left behind or wither away. Like old soldiers, fading away is better than withering away. Written  by Madhavan T Gopalachary The views, opinions and interpretations are personal. Sponsorship does not mean that the sponsors endorse them. © Copyright, Dec-08 . www.madgopes.com . Without prejudice. All rights reserved