New Work – the challenges of the new working reality

The challenges of New Work concepts for companies

Probably the biggest difficulty of New Work is the work of defining it. As a concept, the megatrend is still young and in constant flux, which makes it hard to grasp. Rather than a concrete and universally valid approach, it's basically more a question of purpose and principles:

What does the workplace of the future look like? Which conditions does it have to meet? And which changes does that take?

Behind the umbrella term New Work are approaches and models that want to provide answers to these questions around the social and economic upheaval in the digital age. Typical goals of New Work concepts are:

• The boundaries between work and private life blur further.
• Work should hold a greater meaning than just trading time for money.
• It should be possible to work more flexibly, more agilely and, above all, independently of location.
• The basis for this is laid by ongoing digitalization, constant innovation and globalization.

Numerous strategies and concepts already exist for how the New Work philosophy can be applied in practice. Which of these variants is the right one is a highly individual question from company to company.

One constant nevertheless remains: the new working reality of New Work brings challenges for organizations.

Poor technical equipment

Have you ever tried to attend a video call with an analog telephone?

As absurd as the thought seems, it makes clear an important basic prerequisite of New Work: digital and dynamic work concepts can only function with a suitable IT infrastructure.

“That's not how it looks for all employees – many companies sent their staff to the home office without providing them the necessary technology.“

This fact became painfully clear to quite a few German companies during the corona crisis. Employees were sent to the home office and there sometimes didn't even have the necessary technology available.

Private laptops, phones and internet lines had to do. Crashes, outages and pixelated video meetings, in which you recognize the other person more by colors than by shapes, included.

On top of that came questions that had never been asked before in many businesses. From when is an employee entitled to a company laptop? How can work processes even be carried out from the home office? Can data protection be guaranteed?

It quickly became clear: in most cases, neither the equipment nor the setup of the employees was designed for remote work.

This problem, however, isn't limited to the home office alone. The usual workplaces in the companies themselves often don't meet the criteria for flexible and agile processes either. Cumbersome old systems, slow internet connections and data security gaps are just the tip of the iceberg.

The challenge here is to create new ecosystems and IT infrastructures that meet the requirements of New Work concepts.

High expectations vs. feasibility

When the keyword New Work comes up, many of us inevitably think of colorful images, like those shown to us from the offices of Google and other tech giants in Silicon Valley.

In-house coffee shops and restaurants of well-known chains take care of strengthening the employees. Anyone who finds stairs and elevators too boring when changing floors takes the slide. Instead of the eighth cup of coffee, employees can recover with a nap in special lounging areas. In general, offices and common rooms resemble a futuristic living project far more than classic workplaces.

“Modern workplaces create a homely environment in which employees feel comfortable and can freely unfold their creative potential.“

The purpose behind it is as simple as it is efficient: working according to the New Work principle frees employees from the formerly rigid time and place constraints.

So why not create a greater feel-good factor right away and make it possible for everyone to deploy their abilities in whatever way works best for them? One person has brilliant ideas in the desk chair, another at the foosball table.

So far, so colorful. It becomes problematic when this ideal of a perfect work environment meets the sober reality in Germany.

With local labor law, elements like slides, wellness areas or even go-kart tracks are hard to reconcile. On top of that come further legal conditions that, with work and private time blurring, require comprehensive clarification.

How is working time recorded for flexible teams? How can data protection be guaranteed when employees work off-site or even from abroad? Is it a workplace accident if the table-tennis bat develops a life of its own during brainstorming?

At this point, it's up to the companies to create a legally compliant yet innovative work environment in which their talents can unfold freely and efficiently.

Old habits and great room for interpretation

New Work is ultimately a cultural change. Not only the reality of work is completely transformed, but also our understanding of it.

But what exactly does that mean in practice? Does the workplace of the future in a marketing agency resemble that of a craft business? Hardly.

Not every New Work concept can be realized without restriction in every industry or every company size. On top of that, the philosophy of flexible and dynamic working can be interpreted very differently.

Habits and traditions have to be questioned, while at the same time opening up to completely new approaches. A journey into the unknown that doesn't always meet acceptance from employees and leaders.

For companies, the challenge arises from this to find an individual answer to the question of what New Work actually means for their own organization.

Which concepts make sense and help? How much responsibility can be handed over to employees? Where are process optimizations needed and where is rather a rethink required?

This is how you can overcome the hurdles to the workplace of the future

In our daily work, we support numerous organizations in setting off on the path into a modern world of work. Against this backdrop, we know very well what a difficult balancing act companies have ahead of them.

On the one side are new wishes and needs for unfolding potential, flexibility and agility. On the other, traditions and the worry about the company's long-term success.

To do justice to both sides, it takes a tailored transformation process that anchors New Work sustainably in the company.

We at grandega can support you with our experience and expertise in this undertaking from start to finish. The kickoff is made by our New Work Readiness Check.

The New Work Readiness Check

Every company is unique. Accordingly, it takes completely individual approaches when it comes to making fundamental changes to the work organization and structure.

With our New Work Readiness Check, we therefore carry out a kind of organizational diagnosis. It consists of a 3-stage model, with whose help we capture the maturity level of your organization.

The basis is an as-is analysis, which we carry out with the help of a multidimensional questionnaire and personal conversations. In the second step, we derive a plan of measures from these results. The procedure is as follows:

• The participating decision-makers from the organization rate 56 statements on a numerical scale.
• These statements are assigned four dimensions (people, collaboration, structure and tools) and various key terms (e.g. leadership style, productivity, etc.).
• Based on the answers, we determine averages for the respective dimensions and key terms.
• Through the multidimensional view, the results give us very concrete pointers to primary fields of action.
• Based on the assigned key terms, we can also match the New Work hacks suited to your individual situation.
• If, by contrast, one of the four dimensions already proves to be New Work ready, it isn't optimized again, but developed further if appropriate.

Third comes the determination of the maturity level of your organization. This maturity level helps us create a shared understanding of what exactly implementing New Work means for your company. We can determine which elements already exist, which will be useful in the future and to what extent we can contribute with our solution, the House of New Work.

In this process, our New Work method toolbox is a great help. With this living collection of currently over 50 strategies and hacks of various complexity and size, we find suitable solution approaches for your challenges.

New Work – a project that doesn't just end

After the New Work Readiness Check and the House of New Work, we move into the third phase: living New Work. That means we don't leave you out on a limb in the actual implementation of the measures either.

Instead, we stand by your side as a long-term partner, accompanying you and making sure you successfully manage the balancing act toward the workplace of the future.

Would you like to learn more about how our grandega New Work solution can help you? Then contact us!