Profession or vocation to the New Work Way
"Pay to Quit" or what is the price for you to leave?
“If you quit today, we’ll pay you for the time you worked and offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Unusual approaches like these have been shaping the new culture in our understanding of New Work, and not just since today.
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«Pay to Quit» oder «The Offer»
That’s what U.S. shoe retailer Zappos calls “Pay to Quit” or “The Offer.”
When should a company pay money to people to leave after a few weeks? When the goal is to hire employees who are passionate about their jobs. Such unusual approaches are shaping the new culture in our understanding of New Work, and not just today.
The fast-growing company that works hard to attract new employees and bribes them to quit after a short time! Excellent customer service instead of marketing is the Zappos principle, which can be achieved if everyone in the company is aware of the common goal, which in this case is not the products but the service: “We want to be the best brand for service”.
«Businesses often forget about the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees»
(Tony Hsieh – Zappos Gründer)
Zappos’ corporate culture is based on a strong identification with the company, which is also achieved by the fact that the transitions between work and leisure are fluid, the integration of one’s own purpose and the design of the workplace.
The growing trend towards mobile and decentralized workplaces has implications for the design of the central office or headquarters as we have known it, but also for its technical set-up, office environment design, layout and office furniture.
In this post, we’ll look at the various trends influencing the home office debate and how they might affect the way you work.
It seemed like an involuntary, temporary measure at first, and yet it’s the dawn of a much larger development.
The path to the new working world of the future
„We are finally on the way to the working world of the future.“
There are many opinions in the media about whether employees want to return to the office and conflicting reports about what a “workplace” really is by definition.
The degree of physical presence is seen as a critical point; whether he or she appears regularly in an office or works completely independently remotely.
Hybrid working, however, has long been nothing new for tech companies, for example. In many countries, well over 45% of jobs are already telecommuting, because the long distances involved would mean relocation or unreasonably long commutes.
In a hybrid environment, today’s mobile workers are highly productive employees who generally feel just as connected to their work as those who work in a fixed office.
But to work with freedom also comes more challenges for employers and employees, and not all employees are comfortable in a hybrid office.
- How can we ensure the success of this new type of workplace?
- How can we maintain professionalism in this age of the “Anywhere Office”?
Market Research Institute Forsa in April 2021 about health problems due to a bad workplace.” Thus in an article from Computerworld (german article).
But right there was the resolution: “deficient, non-ergonomic workplaces”
Before the Corona pandemic broke out, 35 percent of companies here were using hybrid work models; now 77 percent are, according to one study, and 75 percent of implementation is still in the development phase. (Source)
Most people still work from home at the moment and want to continue to do so in self-determined time slots in the future.
As more companies also move to part-time; remote work and other flexible work options, and employees opt for remote workplaces, the former offices will dissolve and gradually be replaced by collaboration spaces.
In some cases, remote work is even becoming virtually full-time, which also accommodates opportunities for digital nomads. This may also be an opportunity to retain young professionals within the company.
Digital nomad work is the result of a demographic shift in society. The working population, especially in the western industrialized countries, is aging, and at the same time there will be significantly fewer people of working age to take their place. The new generation is also no longer as committed to a career as their older colleagues.
“Workplace of the future”
Since the industrial revolution, there has been a trend towards flexibility, with employees going to their fixed office desk during the day, but also having a home office where they work at night and on weekends.
This new way was already called the “workplace of the future” or workplace 2.0 years ago.
Today we have skipped the numbering and with the working world 4.0 new standards are set. Culture, leadership and mindfulness are coming to this.
We’ve all heard about the benefits of a flexible workplace, as post-war innovations in communications, information technology and transport have already sparked a revolution in the way people live and work: The Workplace Revolution. Telecommuters meant that employees were no longer tied to their desks in a single location, and the growth of home offices or decentralized office concepts began. Today, these are often mentioned as the origin of coworking, although the latter has little in common with each other except decentralization.
Co-working Spaces. The Business Center Association of Houston also notes an increase in “shared office space for rent as well as shared office space for lease.” Both business centers and flexible workspaces are on the rise in our region as well.
Much has also been written about the benefits of collaborative work environments, but only now are we starting to see companies really get it right. Companies large and small have generously shared their models or merged their distinctly different corporate cultures into a new way of working together. But it will prove necessary for companies that have not yet gone digital to maintain organizational structures that more closely resemble traditional hierarchies for the time being, and to slowly move closer to work called New Work. They now urgently need to make up for this omission.
In Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux provides a detailed overview of alternative approaches and the tools and processes required to implement them.
The benefits of flexible working are not in the process itself, but in the results.
8 Trends in the future of work
With these 8 points, we take a look at some key trends to prepare for in the future of work:
- Offices become meeting places.
- Location-independent activities are preferred.
- Corporate coworking spaces in rural areas.
- Freelancers and clickworkers are becoming established.
- Other organizational models are developing.
- Success is booked in projects.
- The new currency in the “war for talents” is called flex-time.
- Lifelong learning in communities.
Work is being redefined – Beyond today’s thinking
In the future, the way we define work will evolve beyond today’s thinking.
We now need to learn from the experience of the last few months, take our cue from companies and individuals who have been involved with “new work” for a longer period of time, and analyze what has worked and what has not worked individually and for our organization.
Innovation requires going beyond the status quo and engaging in real change. We need to embrace the unknown and ambiguity, and divest ourselves of processes that are no longer needed. Also, having the courage to truly rethink processes so that they can be designed to be flexible and adaptable.
Of course, the work location and the infrastructure must be designed accordingly, but the entire office does not necessarily have to be converted. Offering employees the option of a home office and working in a coworking space are already important first steps.
The technologies have been around for a long time.
What is important now is to enable and encourage people to use them and to set an example.
8 tips & tricks for a successful transformation to the working world 4.0
[Source: Heike Bauer For KMU Magazin: Meine Firma, 2022/01, Page 31 /emagcreator.com]
- Conduct employee satisfaction survey in the company
- Develop mission statement and values as common orientation
- Encourage and demand self-responsible action from employees
- Integrate appreciative measures that are not directly related to the company
- Introduce measures for identification with the company
- Enable infrastructure for innovative and healthy work
- Offer flexible work location and work models, with technical support and appropriate empowerment
- Continuously follow up and make presentations on implementation from previous results
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