Work 4.0 and New Work: the modern world of work

Many organisational researchers see the world of work facing a paradigm shift. To exploit the potential opportunities associated with digitalisation, the energy and mobility transition and the requirements of climate neutrality, companies need new forms of work organisation. This concerns the structural set-up of the organisation as well as processes and communication routines.

The buzzwords New Work and Work 4.0 describe changes that can increase the performance and resilience of organisations. They show in the corporate structure, in processes and in the way people communicate and act with one another in the workplace.

The two terms are often used synonymously but denote two different perspectives on new working environments. New Work deals mainly with socio-cultural aspects of work and the question of how people want to work together effectively in future. Work 4.0 focuses on the influence of digitalisation and technical progress on work processes and asks what successful collaboration needs in the digital age.

Proponents of both perspectives agree: organisations need changed forms of work design in order to remain successful and to use the opportunities of social and political transformation processes.

Technical progress has repeatedly and massively changed the way people organise work and manufacture products. Researchers distinguish four industrial ages. Each is characterised by distinctive production techniques, forms of work organisation, products made and socio-political framework conditions.

The challenges of Industry 4.0 cannot be met with the work organisation of earlier ages. What is required are work and leadership structures shaped by collaboration, mobile working, work-life blending, more personal responsibility and self-organisation. In future, artificial intelligence or machines will take over many strenuous, monotonous and repetitive tasks. This brings fundamentally human abilities such as creativity and empathy into focus, and corporate cultures become more agile and adaptive.

The Work 4.0 concept asks what the world of work must look like so that the economy and society can use the opportunities of digital transformation. Its first defining feature is decentralised and networked working. Employees access work materials via cloud solutions regardless of time and place, which particularly facilitates focused work. Exchange via video conferencing has become a matter of course.

Decentralised collaboration does not run by itself, however. Teams need accepted and lived coordination routines in order to work both independently and collaboratively. Interdisciplinary exchange needs hybrid settings. If these are thoughtfully designed, the office changes from a place of work into a hub for co-creation and co-working, for interpersonal relationships and lived corporate culture.

Purpose-driven leadership involves employees and, when changes are planned, explains the context of meaning and the significance for the company's purpose. In this understanding, mere information is not enough. Ideally, the objectives of an organisational unit are worked out together with the team and its contribution to value creation is defined collaboratively. With decentralised teams in particular, the meaning and significance of self-organised activities must be clear. This strengthens motivation and makes communication about results easier.

Self-responsibility, self-determination and self-organisation require trust in employees' capabilities and appreciation of their performance. Organisations should create freedom in terms of time and place to try out new methods of collaboration, leadership models and production processes. Anyone who tries something new makes mistakes. A culture of imperfection and tolerance of mistakes within a defined framework are helpful.

Networked, more highly automated production facilities in smart factories and the sensible use of robotics enable more digital work, and physically strenuous tasks decline. The step from conventional manufacturing to the networked factory succeeds when people, technology and organisation are carefully aligned with one another. A one-sided fixation on technical innovations often creates resistance among the workforce.

The world's knowledge has long exceeded the learning capacity of any individual. Organisations benefit when employees learn from one another and expand their skills together and in a targeted way. Interlinking people and organisational development, for example through tailored learning architectures, makes it easier to cope with change, uncertainty and growing complexity. Communication routines and spaces, including virtual ones, that enable teams to engage in continuous self-reflection and self-renewal are gaining in importance.

In networked organisations, work-life blending replaces the long, conflict-ridden search for work-life balance. Work emails in leisure time are normal for many employees, and conversely private matters can be dealt with between two meetings. This offers opportunities and carries risks. More flexible working-time models do not release employers from their duty of care. Work-life blending must be managed so that it delivers its advantages for both sides.

Corporate social and environmental responsibility, CSR for short, refers to the social responsibility of companies in the sense of sustainable business. Careful use of resources, protection of the environment and regional engagement build employee loyalty. Transparency towards stakeholders about fair and legally compliant value-creation processes is also gaining in importance.

The term New Work goes back to the social philosopher Frithjof Bergmann. Towards the end of the 1970s he designed a counter-model to the Taylorist control of work processes and saw organisations in the transition from the industrial to the knowledge age as facing the task of enabling more independence, freedom and shared participation. There is still no uniform definition today. The term refers to methods and efforts that bring employees' everyday reality together with organisational structures.

New Work goes far beyond mobile working, digital tools and creative workspaces. transformis views the widespread trivialisation of organisational relationships with scepticism, but sees behind the attention paid to the term a serious developmental problem of organisations. Knowledge work requires different logics from assembly-line work and a changed understanding of leadership.

Contemporary leadership builds on trust in employees' capacity for self-organisation and on shared, well-communicated visions of the future. Control is replaced by participation in defining objectives and jointly agreed criteria against which their achievement can be measured. Such structures relieve managers and create room for interpersonal leadership tasks, including via virtual media.

Industry 4.0 and Work 4.0 should not be reduced to new technologies. People, technology and ways of working must be aligned with one another so that the potential opportunities associated with digitalisation can be exploited. Robots and artificial intelligence only work optimally when the task fits their functions and employees are qualified to use the technology effectively and efficiently.

Innovative technologies and modern ways of working change organisational culture massively. This change should be observed closely and, where necessary, accompanied by culture development measures. The transformis approach assumes that profound change can only be achieved and sustainably anchored through effective interlinking of strategy, organisational and people development.