“New Work” | A Megatrend Redefining the Way We Work

We are living in times of constant change. Trends like globalization, digitalization, individualization, increased connectivity and mobility are influencing the way we live immensely and are bringing about a change of structure of our entire society. A completely new era is beginning – an era in which we as humans have to navigate our way around a fully digitalized world with automatization processes, robots in all areas of our lives, and AIs taking over from simpler jobs to more complex work more and more often. Evidently, there are trends balancing out these developments.

 

Human-Centered Work

One of these movements is described with the term “future of work” or “new work” and it is the process of making work and work environments more human-centered again. New work as a megatrend outlines all the developments that our way of working is going through. In a digitalized and globalized future, work will take on a completely new status in people's lives. New work puts the potential development of each individual person in the center. It puts work in the service of humans: we no longer work to live, and we no longer live to work. In the future, it is all about the successful symbiosis of life and work.

 

From Coworking to Corporate Health

Speaking more concretely, new work spans a large list of terms: from co-working and collaboration, over start-up culture and lean / agile / fail forward-methods, to new hierarchies and corporate health (a full list can be found here). Below we will illuminate four selected trends within the megatrend of new work.

 

  • Coworking & Collaboration

In the future, mobile nomads will work in temporary project teams around the world. It will not matter anymore from where you work. We are increasingly becoming self-employed, even if we are permanently employed and the employee becomes a customer, partner and co-designer. Traditional work places and times dissolve, which can lead to new design possibilities, more freedom and a better reconciliation of work and family. Work is done everywhere in public spaces or in shared offices where temporary workplaces can be rented. New spatial concepts inside and outside the company are in demand and co-working spaces for working together and sharing knowledge are created.

 

  • Permanent Beta

The term "beta" originally refers to a software version that has not yet been completely completed. Transferred to the modern world of work, this trend refers to the phenomenon that processes, projects and products are in a permanent change or adaptation mode, which never comes to a conclusion – but which also allows for improvements and adaptations without endless chains of bureaucracy. The permanent beta also is part of the startup culture wherein agile and lean project management and failing forward are part of a company’s practice.

 

  • New Hierarchies

The changes of hierarchies will demand for new organizational structures, ones in which trust, more responsibility, working on eye-level and diversity will be more present (i.e. Holacracy). Given fundamental changes in the work and business world, especially employee diversity is seen as an increasingly important success factor for companies in terms of innovation and resilience.

 

  • Corporate Health

The clever combination of private and professional life will become the big task of the coming years. Work-life blending or life-domain balance represents a new approach to reconciliation. But this blurring of work and private life can also cause new burdens. The feeling of being constantly online is reinforced ("always on"). The combination of private and professional life thus becomes one of the greatest challenges of the modern working world. As a result, occupational health management will also play an increasingly important role in companies. In order to ensure the efficiency of employees, health care becomes a strategic management task with the aim of creating work environments that have both physical and mental relief. 

 

Navigating These Changes With Future.preneurship

In these times of change, where “new work” has started to sneak into and shape our work culture, it is very difficult - for employers and employees alike – to navigate the waters of offering and finding an attractive work environment. We at Future.preneurship believe that it is essential to create formats and processes that help both sides to ease into this new world of working. That is also why we have created our newest program, where we connect young professionals with innovative companies. The gist of it? All participants (new employees) will get training in the areas of entrepreneurial approaches such as agile, lean and design thinking, innovative team cultures & startup tools, essentials in financial business concepts of startups and meaningful career creation. They will learn all about these new ways of working and to be able to carry these changes over to their employers directly. We might be biased here, but it definitely sounds like a win-win situation, right? For anyone interested in our new program, the applications are still open for companies and candidates until September 8, 2019.

 

We are positively excited that the modern world of work will soon be as diverse as never seen before. It opens up new opportunities for all - for employees and employers. The fourth industrial revolution has already begun - roughly 230 years after the first one - and the concept of work is slowly but surely being redefined. If you want to be part of this revolution and create new perspectives with us, check out Future.preneurship

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