“From tomorrow we will work agile!” This order from a boss is a joke for those in the know because, from the point of view of supporters of the so-called New Work, it is a sure way to a dead end. Behind agile work, an essential feature of New Work, is not strict ordering, but enabling employees to react to changes at lightning speed. Agile work is now regarded as a panacea for corporate success. However, if you are guided by instructions and have to expect a penalty for every mistake, you cannot work agile at all. New Work only works if companies trust in the competence and motivation of their employees and leave them to decide what needs to be done, where and when: “Do it the way you want it to.”
In special training courses, bosses are made familiar with the principles of New Work. “There is no company that does not have to deal with the new organization of work,” emphasizes Carsten Meier, one of the co-founders of the Berlin New Work consultancy Intraprenör. His dream is to change the world of work in such a way that “many more people enjoy going to work in the morning and are able to contribute their talents and skills”.
Attending a seminar on this topic also makes sense because some managers struggle with the fact that their authority can be challenged by a team member at any time. Frithjof Bergmann, Austro-American philosopher and inventor of New Work, even recommends involving employees in every strategy development and asking: “Is that right for you? Do you go along with it? And what can you contribute to it?” However, self-image and external image sometimes collide. Because if an employee believes that they can make a meaningful contribution, the supervisor may see it completely differently – and vice versa.
More freedom for employees is just as important as coaching
New Work not only includes the shifting of responsibility to the executive level and the release of working hours and location, but also motivating coaching by supervisors. This is where the further training offers for executives, human resources and organization specialists come in. They are just as different in duration and intensity as the way in which New Work can be designed in the companies. Interested parties should think twice about whether an overview of the goals and methods of New Work is enough for them or whether they want to be involved in the restructuring of their company and acquire more in-depth knowledge of it.
The price range is just as large as the range of content of the training seminars – the costs can be several hundred to several thousand euros. For example, the WiSo Executive Academy (WFA) with their online course “Agile & Digital Leadership”. Managers are familiarized with the topic in four sessions of 120 minutes each. A two-day webinar on agile working Coach Company This is followed by a practical phase in Berlin, in which the seminar leaders support managers in putting what they have learned into practice for two weeks.
The heap academy with their two-day certificate seminar “New Work – Design Environment for HR”, which will take place in several major German cities this year and next. It starts with self-reflection – “What makes me get up in the morning?” – and ends with the presentation of new organizational and leadership principles. In addition, the participants determine the location of their own company – “What does our culture look like and how do we measure it?” And they learn what the human resources department can contribute to shaping the new world of work. The latter point is central to the eight-day, part-time training course to become a New Work Facilitator TAM Academy Berlin is offered. HR professionals or other specialists and executives who want to make New Work their profession and become experts in designing agile working environments can take part in the IU International University take a distance learning course – and acquire a bachelor’s or MBA title.
The needs of the individual employee often take a back seat
As nice as the message about the new, self-determined world of work sounds, most experts agree that it will not be enough to simply delegate decisions downwards, relax work structures and coach managers and employees. “The structural empowerment approach and with it many New Work initiatives focus on the structures of a company and not on the people who have to work in these structures,” criticizes Carsten Schermuly, professor at the SRH Hochschule Berlin. He sees the reason for the failure of many measures in the lack of attention given to the individual. “While an employee appreciates working in a hierarchy due to a high need for security,” Schermuly cites an example, “another person in the same work situation may feel violated in his need for autonomy.” If agility even becomes a show, you tear down a few walls in the office, switch from desk to mobile container and every manager is declared to be the coach of his people, New Work is miles away.
Clever helmsmen who understand one thing above all get on the right course: to carefully guide their crew into the new world of work and to respect the needs of the individual employees during the change process.