Technicorp of ‘45 (Macro)

Back in 2018 I wrote these four speculative narratives that described future scenarios for the state of remote work in 2045.

This is the macro-scenario 1 of 4

The macro-environment

In this scenario your workplace is intrinsically tied to a specific lifestyle, accessible through office neighbourhoods. The personal workplace is seen as yet another tool to ‘get work done’, and the blurring of work, leisure, and life is a dominant tactic used to increase output (and retention) of employees.

This is a future characterized by a distrust of technology, especially as it relates to the collection of sensitive and potentially damning data on otherwise mundane behaviours. As artificial intelligence and automation threatened white collar jobs such as lawyers and doctors, individuals began feeling useless in this fast-moving world. This momentum culminated in strong regulation concerning the use of artificial intelligence automaton in the workplace in order to preserve enough employment for the population. 

Additionally, a backlash against monitoring technology happened back in 2024, when a class-action lawsuit was won against insurance companies who had refused payouts to individuals who had died from heart attacks and who’s smart home devices had recorded them ordering unhealthy meals. The insurance companies claiming the individuals clearly did not take the proper actions for maintaining their health, and individuals pushing back with their rights to enjoy life as they see fit. Since then, big businesses have started to act as sponsors of healthy lifestyles, providing more incentives to their employees and contract workers for adopting healthy eating patterns and better mental health support. 

This has led to the creation of a few business owned complexes. These valuable corporate campuses act as powerful soft power storytelling machines. They are specially designed to boost an organization’s sense of care and benevolence. In this future, the entire city is viewed as a network of working neighbourhoods, each owned and operated by a different set of businesses. Of course, traditional residential neighbourhoods and business areas still exist, but increasingly these work-life neighbourhoods are popping up around town. Rare are the ones owned by a single business (yet they do exist). More often the living arrangements and working spaces are co-shared by a handful of complementary businesses. These business-owned districts offer curated living arrangements, leisure centers, gardens, daycares, and cafeterias. All of these services are subsidized by the business that, in return, expects a highly devoted workforce. A select handful of the biggest coworking networks have a few live-work hubs. It is rumoured that the businesses that have adopted a similar model have taken their inspiration from these coworking neighbourhoods. Back in 2020, WeWork launched its third WeLive apartment complex aimed at streamlining life choices, and the trend for “all-inclusive living” started spreading to co-ops and businesses alike. Many view them as a signal for the workaholic culture, for the division of society into cliques based on prestige and your status being tightly linked with which ‘gated community’ you belong to. 

KEY TRENDS INFORMING THIS SCENARIO 

• micro-living 

• amenitization 

• increased surveillance 

• on-demand economy 

Meanwhile, as continuous climate events threaten the coasts of many important cities such as London, New York and Hong Kong, a migration to higher grounds has been shifting urban demographics. Many are opting to relocate to safer climate regions such as the mid-western North American region, and cities around the Great Lakes. In certain cases this is placing additional stress on vulnerable agricultural land, and as such urban crops are being integrated a top new buildings. Coastal cities are left having to deal with vacant and damaged water-side properties.

The city of Toronto has passed a building code stating that all new multi-unit buildings must have an amenity area that can be used as a coworking space around the clock or have a home office solution built into the unit’s design. Additional stricter regulation concerning the use of natural materials and planted surfaces in new constructions has already been around for a few decades. Whereas beforehand living walls were all the rage, now, we see indoor courtyards and planted floor options become common place. Special genetically modified indoor plants have been developed to better purify the air and in order to better survive indoor conditions.

Remote working is not actively encouraged or discouraged, however, most companies have a flexible workplace strategy that states that should an employee desire to work from home, the company must provide the appropriate tools to conduct the work from the selected location. This is not that difficult as home is… well, for most quite literally still on the work campus. The provided devices remain the property of the company and comes with purpose-built surveillance software. This software is understood to be necessary for ensuring the remote employee is actually working from their private dwelling (or elsewhere) and for proving to the company that the work was completed on time. 

Perhaps because of required surveillance technology built into provided employee devices, many people choose to act as remote consultants since it provides them with more control over their data. However, being a contract worker is associated with longer hours and a heavier workload as more digital ‘paperwork’ is required to be submitted to prove one’s efficiency and thus obtain pay. For both ‘regular’ employees and remote workers it is hard to know where the workplace and workday begins or ends. 

Office spaces are designed to be highly experiential in a bid to encourage workers to choose a life as a full-time employee rather than a contract worker. Many offices have adopted a more laid-back and communal workplace design, perhaps to better mimic the trend seen in coworking spaces. 

The freelancing communities that are sprinkled around the city are essentially elitist coworking spaces for which you have to interview to be a part of. Most coworking spaces are roughly centered around a specific industry or service need. There are a few rogue “open” communities where you can find a software developer working next to an individual producing online courses for homecare providers, but overall it is much more common to find a ‘tech hub’, an ‘arts hub’ or a ‘health hub’.