New Work

The world of work is changing. In this context, the term "new work" often comes up. This collective term covers various innovative concepts for shaping a modern working world. The new working time and management models promise more flexibility, more autonomy and a better work-life balance. Find out what exactly is meant by New Work and learn about different models.

Traditional organizational forms and work structures rarely fit into the modern working world anymore. The idea of New Work is to create a working environment that is more oriented toward the needs and desires of employees. This involves more self-determination and a sense of purpose in work, but also a better work-life balance and a greater compatibility of career and family. The overriding goal of New Work is to make the world of work more contemporary, humane and fit for the future.

There are five principles that make up New Work:

• Freedom: The company offers employees freedom to actively engage with new ideas and topics.
• Self-responsibility: Employees are involved in processes and are specifically encouraged in their self-responsibility.
• Sense: The company serves a sense that is reflected in a visible corporate identity and is characterized by a financial, economic as well as cultural value creation.
• Development: Employees are specifically promoted to expand their creative abilities and to innovate.
• Social responsibility: The corporate culture takes into account aspects of sustainable and ecological management. The corporate sense of responsibility strengthens the togetherness and connectedness locally through active involvement in society, science, technology and culture.

The concept of New Work includes a variety of approaches and methods, such as agile working methods, flexible working hours and locations, greater involvement of employees in decision-making processes, flat hierarchies and an open communication culture.

In the following, we present various models and leadership methods.

"Working remotely" means that employees can decide for themselves where they would like to work outside the company site. This can be at home, in a café, or at any remote location with Internet access, for example. Remote work is made possible by the use of digital technologies and tools such as video conferencing, cloud storage and project management software.

Remote Work offers many advantages:

• Employees have greater flexibility and autonomy through this form of work, as they can complete their tasks and projects according to their needs and schedule.
• Remote work can help reduce commuting and the associated time, cost and environmental impact.
• For employers, remote work can increase productivity.
• The offer to work remotely makes companies more attractive to employees and is an important asset in the competition for the best minds.
• Also, this form of collaboration enables the uncomplicated merging of virtual and international teams.

Among the challenges of remote work may be more difficult collaboration and communication, barriers to maintaining team dynamics and corporate culture, and ensuring data privacy.

The four-day workweek model is based on a working time agreement in which the workweek is reduced to four days, while the working hours generally remain the same. Typically, this involves working longer hours on each workday to achieve the full workweek or a slightly lower workweek.

The idea behind a four-day workweek is to offer employees greater flexibility and a better work-life balance. In return, they receive one additional day off per week. The company either introduces a three-day weekend across the board, or spreads employees' days off throughout the week.

The day off can be used for family, or it can provide the opportunity to see friends more often, do more sports, care more about one's hobbies, or even volunteer.

The four-day week is already being tested and successfully practiced in some companies, including in Germany. The model is particularly suitable for industries in which productivity is measured by the results of work. According to studies*, positive effects can be seen in many ways: employees feel less stressed, the number of sick days falls. Increased employee satisfaction and engagement can even have a positive impact on productivity and work quality.

However, introducing a four-day workweek is not equally practical in all companies and industries. There may also be costs involved if, for example, the business has to close on an extra day of the week, and perhaps additional employees need to be hired to absorb the workload.

For employees, the four-day workweek typically involves working longer days to get to the same number of hours. For example, the model may mean working ten10 hours per day, four days per week, to get to a 40-hour workweek. Also, the remaining workdays may feel more intense and stressful, as the same amount of work must be completed in less time.

Work-life blending is a model in which professional and private life are no longer strictly separated, but are increasingly merging. Both areas are flexibly integrated into everyday life and working life is adapted to individual needs and wishes. The dissolution of boundaries between work and leisure brings more time for family, sports and hobbies and is intended to create a better balance between work and private life. One prerequisite for this is the availability of mobile devices and technologies that enable people to work from anywhere and at any time.

Examples of work-life blending can include:

• Work is done while traveling, regardless of time or location.
• The work is divided into different blocks.
• Private things are inserted and the work is also sometimes postponed to the evening.
• The employees are also available outside regular working hours for meetings or projects.
• Hobbies, sports or family are integrated into the workday, for example, by using the lunch break for a fitness class.

Among the benefits of work-life blending are greater flexibility and autonomy for employees. Work can be better adapted to individual needs and desires. The greater freedom, in turn, leads to greater satisfaction and motivation.

Disadvantages can include a feeling of being overwhelmed when work and personal life merge too much. In addition, not everyone finds it easy to organize their time in a way that creates a healthy balance between work and personal life.

Translated meaningfully, job crafting means something like "shaping one's work or workplace". It is about proactively shaping one's own job according to one's own ideas by making small changes. This can relate to various areas, for example, personal work tasks, work relationships or even the work environment. The goal of job crafting is to change the job so that it better matches the employee's individual skills, interests and needs. Overall, the changes should result in a work environment that better meets the employee's individual needs and abilities, contributing to higher satisfaction, productivity and performance.

Job crafting can take several forms:

• For example, employees can reshape their work tasks by changing their priorities, adding new projects or tasks, or changing the order and number of tasks.
• Employees can change their work relationships by adjusting how they work with colleagues or supervisors, or by building new relationships with other teams or departments.
• The work environment can also be changed, for example, by redesigning the workplace or adjusting working hours.

With job crafting is not meant a one-time change, rather it is about an ongoing process. On the team, each member should keep asking themselves how the job can be proactively reshaped. Employers can encourage the process through targeted education and training, strengthening employees' skills and giving them more autonomy and decision-making freedom to better shape their work environment.

Among the benefits of job crafting is that it reduces stress and can promote well-being. For example, older employees can benefit by handing off tasks that are too difficult or unpleasant in exchange for mentoring or coaching duties.

The job-sharing model has been around since the 1980s. Today, however, it is taking on a new meaning. In this form of part-time work, two employees share knowledge and responsibilities within a full-time position. Each employee works on certain days or at certain times and is responsible for certain tasks within the position. Work schedules and duties may be divided among them on an individual basis. This may or may not be 50:50. A different split, such as working three days and two days, is also feasible.

Job sharing allows for workload sharing and a better work-life balance for the employees involved. When the two complement each other ideally, job sharing can increase work productivity by allowing each employee to focus on their strengths and specific areas of responsibility.

The most important prerequisite for successful job sharing is that both team members communicate well with each other in order to coordinate the work optimally. If this does not succeed, mistakes or delays can occur and, if necessary, conflicts can arise that have a negative impact on work performance.

Leadership and responsibility can also be shared. In "leading in tandem" - also called co-leadership -- two people take on a leadership position together. The dual leadership shares responsibility for managing a team or a project.

The path from lone wolf to leadership duo has many advantages. Strengths and weaknesses as well as ideas and perspectives can complement each other. Different experiences and approaches can lead to better decisions. If one leader in the tandem fails or retires, the other leader can seamlessly take over and ensure that the organization can continue smoothly.

A dual leadership is also suitable for increasing the proportion of women in leadership positions. After all, leadership positions are often associated with a high workload of 50 to 60 hours or more, which discourages women in particular from becoming leaders. The leadership tandem model makes the prospect of a career far more attractive.