NEW WORK – PUTTING PEOPLE AT THE HEART OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION!
For some years, the world of work has been undergoing fundamental and structural change. New Work is a term used to sum up this transformation. The triggers for these changes are many and varied. Digitalization and new technologies, connectivity, automation, comprehensive interconnection and globalization, but also demographic change and more.
All these aspects are the drivers behind innovation projects. Why is BLG's InnoTeam tackling the issue of New Work? There is no ONE definition of New Work. Yet all attempts to explain it have a common theme: Enabled and even driven by globalization and digitalization, New Work puts people at the center of things. And that is precisely what we do with our innovation projects. We don't embrace innovation for its own sake. Instead, we want to shape the logistics of tomorrow and give the working environment for our colleagues the right conditions for the future.
A FRESH VIEWPOINT
Over the last few decades, the world of work has changed radically, and this is also reflected in our InnoTeam projects. One of our priorities is to put people at the foreground of all technical developments. Progress means change, and that needs careful preparation and support for the people affected. This is why it is important to us that we involve colleagues in our innovation projects.
Simultaneously, when we develop solutions, we take care to consider the interests of everybody who will implement them. Essential aids here are modern methods such as design thinking, which puts the needs of users in the foreground.
Agile approaches such as the scrum or lean startup methods are based on continuous iteration and enable fast learning through experience – including learning from failures – as well as flexible reaction to changing conditions.
It is important to us that all colleagues contribute equally to development and can also try out ideas. New Work is teamwork! The more people in a team who collaborate and contribute their experience, the more creative and innovative the pool of ideas is that the team can draw on. This requires creative spaces, agile methods, interconnection and partnership. All these conditions are available for our InnoTeam.
FLEXIBILITY
Change also opens up new opportunities for flexibility in terms of time, location and organization. This will alter workplaces and corporate structures in the future.
How productive is sitting alone in your office, talking to nobody and plodding on with your work? It is anything but ideal for successful work. Many companies have already realized this and now design their work spaces to encourage interaction. Now is the time to create structures for the kind of creative, fresh thinking promoted by the New Work concept.
And that is what the DigiLab at BLG achieves. It provides ample space for creative work in a new atmosphere. Here, the tables are pushed aside so that colleagues can brainstorm, pin up creative ideas and sketch on the walls.
The InnoTeam also organizes workshops and training for other teams at BLG, introducing them to methods of rediscovering themselves or changing their perspective by developing fresh approaches to solution finding.
VALUES
At the same time, the needs of employees are changing. More and more people are asking themselves what they want from life and work in the future. That is why the core values in the New Work concept are independence, freedom and social participation. New Work is designed to offer new ways of enabling creativity and personal development.
The InnoTeam experiences what New Work can mean in practice not only by applying the latest methods. Equally, their cooperation with startups generates ideas about how to improve collaboration models, working methods and working culture and what a modern, future-oriented organization could look like. Naturally, the InnoTeam doesn't just monitor technological changes, it is also involved in designing the working environment of tomorrow.
The team trials new solutions beyond the technology level. It tests new methods such as scrums, design sprints and OKR, which is a modern framework for target setting in complex, volatile environments. Self organization with a Kanban board? Monthly team learning? Daily morning meetings, also when working from home?
Canvas or Lego Serious Play business models? Our InnoTeam tries out new methods all the time.
New Work includes many aspects. Looked at in theory, lots of it seems to be pretty vague. That is why the InnoTeam is dedicated to transferring its experiences and this mindset into BLG practical operations by conducting projects and training courses and also holding workshops to help with changes or solution finding. Because we know that innovative solutions require a modern organization, forward-looking working methods and a willingness to embrace new ways of doing things!
