New Work is an organisational approach that pursues several corporate goals: increasing competitiveness, enhancing attractiveness as an employer and employee retention, as well as providing the different generations in a company with offers that enable them to make the best possible use of their workforce and reduce frictional losses. To achieve this, New Work puts people at the centre, offers individual solutions and thus contributes to social sustainability.

New Work is characterised by a high degree of virtualisation of work equipment, networking of people, flexibilisation of work locations, times and content. The digital transformation and the associated pressure to innovate are also increasingly demanding and promoting agile, self-organised and highly customer-oriented working principles. Not only the when and where of work, but also the mode of collaboration with colleagues and customers is changing. New Work can therefore also be seen as a response to the changing expectations of employees with regard to issues of participation, autonomy and the creation of meaning through work. As a result, the demands on managers and management systems are changing: a less hierarchical, but more coaching, lateral and supportive understanding of leadership is required.

Aspects of New Work

Corporate culture

Companies interact with their environment in a variety of ways and are therefore dependent on reflecting social changes in their organisational structures. In this sense, New Work always addresses the corporate culture. Employees not only work in the company, but also on the company. In this sense, they are partly involved in shaping operational processes. This requires a strong relationship of trust between employees and management.

The key values for this are appreciation and recognition of employees. Employees who are difficult or impossible to reach with conventional New Work approaches should also be taken into account. One example of this is the use of home offices, which is generally not possible for production employees.

New Work also provides impetus for corporate culture in terms of overcoming generational differences. An inclusive, equal-opportunity corporate culture takes generational differences into account and creates a working environment in which all employees feel valued and supported. One example of this is digital applications that are used differently by different age groups on a day-to-day basis. In addition, a culture of error can be practised that embraces the failure of new ideas. It is not uncommon for a new error culture to be desired, but to fail due to the time and performance pressure of everyday life. Here, the targeted use of appropriate resources can be considered in order to save resources and increase productivity in the long term through greater efficiency. Living a culture of error can be very challenging, especially for managers, and requires appropriate prerequisites.

Management and organisational models

Traditional hierarchical management structures are scrutinised in New Work. The relationship between employee self-determination and management by superiors is being rebalanced. Leadership can be based less on control and more on participation and encouragement, as well as taking up existing knowledge and developing it further. As a result, the leadership role becomes less directive; what is needed is an understanding of leadership as a coach. The focus is shifting to cooperation. The main task of managers is to set the framework. As a general rule, employees need clear and transparent rules in order to be able to utilise the potential of New Work in the long term. Individual coordination can be supported with digital tools. Software offerings for project-related coordination that disclose decision-making structures or make them accessible and comprehensible are useful for this.

Need for regulation

There is also a need for regulation in New Work, but it goes beyond traditional labour and collective bargaining approaches without abolishing them. The new need for regulation is already being addressed in many cases by the collective bargaining partners and company parties (e.g. in collective agreements or works agreements). For example, new rules (e.g. with regard to working time models) can be established within the team.

The relationship between employees and managers is determined by the tension between flexibility and the assumption of responsibility or personal responsibility and organisation. Teams or groups can have their own independent regulations, but these must be compatible with the company - so as not to allow isolated solutions to get out of hand.

The regulatory framework can provide security in order to cushion the impact of potential boundaries. Here, the company can make more offers and provide opportunities. Works councils can be involved here. If necessary, appropriate education and training programmes can be made available.

Opportunities and risks

The implementation of New Work aspects encounters a heterogeneous group of companies as well as very different prerequisites among the companies. The following risks and opportunities can therefore be taken into account:

Opportunities

• Flexibility: New Work can enable employees to organise their work and working hours more flexibly. This can help to achieve a better work-life balance.
• Collaboration: New Work promotes collaboration between employees by facilitating communication and the exchange of ideas. This can lead to better results and more innovative solutions.
• Motivation: New Work can help to increase employee motivation by giving them more freedom and responsibility to organise their work and make decisions.
• Agility: New Work enables companies to react quickly to changes and new challenges by promoting a more flexible organisational structure and way of working.

Risks

• Uncertainty: New Work can be uncertain and unpredictable for employees as it gives them more responsibility and freedom, but also more uncertainty.
• Overload: New Work can lead to employees being overwhelmed if they have to make too many decisions or their workload is too high.
• Technology dependency: New Work often requires an extensive technological infrastructure and dependency on digital tools, which can lead to challenges if these tools are not properly mastered, error-prone or not properly compatible.