When a global provider of real estate services peered into the future, what came into focus above all else was flexibility — a flexible workplace unlike any yet seen in the real world.

In this world, real estate facilities will be consumed by employees, employees, entrepreneurs and working free spirits. Ownership of facilities, where it will exist, will be joint, and far more work will be performed with far more efficiency and accuracy at the “hive” or, as we currently know it, the home.

This is what emerged from Smart Workplace 2040: Rise of the Workspace Consumer, a truly exhaustive effort by Johnson Controls Global Workplace Solutions unit to determine how and where people will work in 2040.

That date isn't so far off, which is what made the research especially intriguing.

It wasn't pie-in-the-sky research either, but a study pulled together from surveys, workshops, analysis of existing data, picking the brains of experts, and then a bit of extrapolation by the study's authors.

“The workplace of 2040 is far more agile, the presence of technology is ultra predominant and human beings are highly reliant on it. Yet the technology is shy, not intrusive, transparent, and highly reliable,” the report read.

“By 2040, we will not own facilities, we will consume them. Our real estate portfolio will resemble a network of workplaces, and our workplace will be a co-working environment spread across an eco-campus,” the report continued. “The Smart Workplace 2040 anticipates important changes to our working environment. A concerted response from CREM and FM, workplace and HR functions will help to ensure that businesses are fully prepared for the changes ahead.”

Predictions of the research included:

• The home will become a hyper-connected and adaptive place to work, responsive to the environment and its users, supporting multiple requirements simultaneously;
• Workers will make use of “complex software applications [that will] suggest what they should do to maximize performance;”
• True offline time, or personal time, will become both a luxury and a necessity. Being physically present will be perceived as more authentic, a privilege rather than a requirement;

• Adaptive white noise technology will make it possible to have a first rate telepresence session in an open environment, thus eliminating concerns about what's going on around the flexible worker;
• Consumers will literally build their own products, bought through their smartphones using mobile web applications, and printed on demand;
• Commuting will come under pressure not only because of the time and energy consumed, and restrictions on driving and parking, but because flexible workspace concepts will render it unnecessary in most cases;
• New leaps forward in applying technology to work will eliminate many of the accepted concepts of when, where and how work is accomplished.

Naturally, real estate use was a focus of the report. Hot desking, hoteling, choose your term — these concepts now in place will be taken to the next level and beyond as human capital, or employees, demand to work when and where it best suits them because that will best suit the outcome of their effort.

Management will finally let go of the need to see butts in seats, and will release the potential for productivity and creativity that has been held back by conforming to an outdated workspace model.

Here are recommendations from the study that, the authors believed, will prepare those who follow them to take advantage of what's coming next.

• Consider a dispersed real estate model that deploys mixed facilities and multipurpose environments to allow fast response to utilization patterns and demands;
• Design shared facilities to answer a broader demand from users dispersed across a large geographical region: Co-working facilities, access to local collaboration hubs, leisure and entertainment facilities within close amenities;
• Design social, cohesive and adaptive working environments that empower users and teams across different work contexts and collaboration modes;
• Develop intuitive user interfaces to enhance user experiences: Immersive solutions and services, technology based services.

To support this workspace realignment, the study recommended that companies review their work processes and assets to develop a range of services designed around the web and mobile interfaces to respond to a new demand of highly connected users. The study also urged companies to integrate invisible shy technologies in facilities to track user activities, record user experience and respond in real time to user demand in an unobtrusive, subtle manner.