Trend barometer

New Work: not a hype, but a business necessity

The fact that so many companies are currently dealing with the topic of New Work is not a "fashionable hype", but a "business necessity". This is the conclusion of the current Leadership Trend Barometer from the Institute for Leadership Culture in the Digital Age (IFIDZ).

New Work is primarily a cultural issue and not a structural one

A total of 177 executives participated in this online survey. Of these, 75 percent believed that engaging with the topic of New Work is not a “nice to have” affair for companies, but a necessity due to changed framework conditions. Additionally, 62 percent stated that New Work is “primarily a cultural issue and less of a structural one”, which is why for the majority of them (72 percent) the topic of New Work is also “inseparable” from the topic of New Leadership.

The topics of New Work and New Leadership are interconnected

This response behavior corresponds to the fact that only 14 percent of the executives see engaging with the topic primarily as a reaction of companies to the changed expectations and needs of Generation Y and Z. Rather, they believe that the causes are more complex and profound. According to in-depth interviews with about 15 percent of the respondents, significant drivers of this process include the progressing digitalization and the changing challenges faced by companies in the rapidly changing and less predictable VUCA world; as well as the increasingly palpable shortage of skilled workers and leaders. This forces many companies to fundamentally rethink their personnel policies.

Executives are often still seekers regarding “New Work”

Against this background, it is surprising for the initiators of the survey that 59 percent of the participants stated they already knew “what the term New Work entails and what aspects are associated with it.” This contradicts, according to Barbara Liebermeister, the head of the IFIDZ, “largely the experiences we gather in our everyday work in communication with company leaders.” In it, the IFIDZ still experiences companies and their executives largely as “seeking” and not as individuals or organizations that have already found the solution – “also because this change and transformation process takes place in a dynamic environment.”

New Work is already partially lived in half of the companies

However, it is encouraging according to the IFIDZ that at least 49 percent of the respondents stated that New Work approaches are already being lived in their company, department, or team; furthermore, only 12 percent of them say that while a lot of talk is done about New Work in their company, “little is changing.” According to Barbara Liebermeister, this shows that many companies are currently seriously dealing with the question of how, in addition to work, the work and communication relationships in their organization should be structured and designed in the future, even though there are still no definitive answers to these questions.