Mr Väth, New Work is more prevalent in business than ever before. Has it flourished because of the Covid pandemic?

To be totally blunt, it isn’t New Work that’s gained momentum from Covid, but what people think it means. We’re talking about issues like digitization, but that is, at best, the foundation on which true New Work can be built. This debate has been severely cut short.

What’s wrong with this debate?

Many people forget that New Work was not developed for business at all. Frithjof Bergmann (the founder of the New Work concept) thought of it more as a blueprint for society as a whole. All the measures that we are now discussing have just evolved from this basic idea. They include terms such as “home office”, “new office” or “activity-based working”.

So, are you saying that New Work can’t really be done on its own in a company?

No, I wouldn’t say that either. A company can certainly successfully implement New Work methods, if it’s culturally prepared for it. But that’s the bare minimum: you would have to change something in the fundamental notion of human beings. In business, however, this is often still dominated by thinkers like Michael E. Porter, who work with metaphors of battlefields, victory and defeat. New Work does not work in an environment like that. For New Work, the aspects of society, emotion and humanity have to be considered.

What does this human dimension include?

It’s about how managers are trained and how strong the collective processes are. It’s all about how autonomous employees’ actions can be. It’s crucial that employees know why they are working, and what for. And they must be given the opportunity to develop.

This clearly sounds more difficult than simply writing a home office policy. How can something like this be implemented in a company?

You need three things to implement any New Work idea. First: you have to include everyone in the company in its transformation. Otherwise, no fundamental cultural change will succeed. But you have to accept that you can’t take everyone along with you on the journey: there will never be 100 percent agreement. Second: the people in charge, whoever they are, have to go along with it too. If managers prescribe New Work, but don’t take it up themselves, it won’t work. And third: you have to create processes to support and steer the reorganization.

What processes are we talking about here?

First of all, processes are required for exchanging information. So you need to discuss the following: What do we want to achieve? How do we get there? What problems might there be? Subsequently, decision-making models should be set up that help to implement the results of this discussion. For example, you can look at the participation ladder, a model that shows how far individuals’ participation in a system has come. It begins at the bottom with external control and finishes with self-government on the highest rung. In New Work transformation, we want to move up this ladder.

You say that a transformation of this kind is possible. In large companies, however, it seems mostly limited to a few cosmetic measures.

Young companies are often further along with New Work, that’s right. There are people at the top who are frustrated with the existing system and are aligning their company with New Work principles from the outset. Of course, this is more difficult for classic, mature companies as they are faced with more inertia. They have to deal with employee organizations and other bodies, as well as with restrictions relating to labor law. There are also well-established processes in the company that you can’t change overnight. Honestly, it’s almost easier to leave it and start over from scratch.

But there are also examples of large companies that have successfully taken the step towards New Work. The building supplier Schüco and the retail group Otto are large companies that do this very well.

What’s the common factor with these examples?

The drivers. From my experience I know that individuals or a small group are almost always the triggers. Of course, they need goodwill from above, an executive management board that says, “just do it”. Ultimately, you need some highly motivated people to drive change.

Is a small group of companies enough to act as a New Work driver for the whole economy?

A system always does what makes sense. That sounds banal, but it means that if companies are successful with New Work, others will follow. At the end of the day, it’s about value creation. So far, however, there’s no evidence that New Work contributes to this, because the concept itself was never intended as a management model.

Won’t New Work become established in its current form?

That’s a good question. Especially in our current times, with our economy constantly reacting to exogenous shocks, it’s difficult to say how it will turn out.

I think we should work to ensure that everyone gets work that plays to their strengths and needs. That would help everyone – people, businesses, and society. At the end of the day, whether this is New Work, or is given the name New Work, doesn’t really matter.

Thank you very much for talking to us.

Ms. Stewart, many employees today want to work differently. How is that expressed? We are currently experiencing a change: a shift from the traditional 9-to-5 structure to flexible hours that fit our personal circumstances. From always working at a set location to working from wherever you want (when possible). From working solely as a means to earn money to working for a bigger goal or purpose. People want to feel a sense of belonging and to feel their value, but first and foremost they want to be perceived and respected as individuals.

You advise companies when it comes to implementing new work concepts. What mistakes do many make?

Systems and processes haven’t quite caught up with the cultural pace of change. Even pre-pandemic, nine in ten people in the UK wanted to work flexibly. But just six in ten companies offered it and only three in ten mentioned flexible working in their job ads. We’ve moved on since then – but not enough. Most companies are vague in their job descriptions when it comes to describing the kind of flexible working on offer, or end up doing what we call flex-washing. This is a term we use to describe flexible working being offered in a job description: but the reality being that the role remains full-time in scope and design. This makes candidates looking for new jobs feel wary of flexible working when it is offered. Is it genuine, will it work out? In research we conducted via our jobsite, nearly half of candidates clicked away from jobs that said they were open to flex. What attracted them were mentions of specific forms of flexible working, e.g. this role can be worked 3 or 4 days per week, late starts and early finishes are possible, or it is open to job share. The more precise an employer can be, the more likely they are to attract great talent. Without any new work offerings at all, companies simply won‘t find talent.

What could companies do better?

Applicants need clear statements on what forms of flexible working are on offer, for example:

‘in our company, you can work at any time of day or from wherever you want’. The same applies to other aspects of new work: we encourage employers to articulate what they are doing in terms of diversity and inclusivity, to talk about their purpose and the future they are trying to build. And most importantly, we encourage employers to reflect inwards and really scrutinize what’s going on internally. If people are leaving, do you know why? If they are leaving because they don’t have the freedom in their ways of working, or don’t feel valued, or don’t see a sense of purpose in their work, you need to get that under control before you start looking for new employees.

Flexible working is viewed critically by some managers. How do you respond to this? Working in a new and different way always means challenging what has gone before. You have to break norms and stigmas that have been established over a long time. It is often said, for example, that flexible working would only benefit the employees, but not the company. This is wrong, as countless studies have shown. Part-time employees or those who work flexible hours are at least as productive or even more productive than their nine-to-five colleagues. Those in charge need to understand that and help change the narrative. It’s all about helping the culture to grow.

How long does such a process take?

Psychologists usually say that people need 60 days to change a behavior from scratch. I think it takes much longer in companies, depending of course on the size. Small companies will get it done faster than large ones, and relatively young companies will be even faster because they don’t have as many norms and standards yet. On average, we assume that successful change takes at least six months, but it is never really completed. You have to constantly ask yourself: are we working better now? Are we working more flexibly? It’s about constant reflection at all levels and being able to take countermeasures when necessary.

What is important to be able to demonstrate success?

You need to collect a lot of data. How productively did the team work before? How effectively does it work after the transformation? How has the level of satisfaction with the work developed? To argue only with a gut feeling is always difficult. It is better to have hard data that proves success through the changeover period.

What role does the leadership team play?

Of course, to implement this in companies, you need strong managers who put the issue on the agenda. But to do that, they also need to have the right tools. Today, we teach our managers how to fill out an Excel spreadsheet, but not how to lead diverse teams across different time zones in hybrid work situations. That’s where skills are needed and that’s where training is needed. In many companies, it is also the case that there is hardly any proactive change from within the organization. It is usually individual employees who cautiously ask their bosses whether they can work differently, for example part-time or working from home, because they have to care for a relative. Companies should be much more proactive in making offers or at least showing that they are open to suggestions. Otherwise, they will lose talented people who don’t dare to ask and are more likely to change companies.

Can role models help create acceptance for the new way of working?

Absolutely, personal experiences are always inspiring. It is important that you as a company focus on different role models from all levels of the organization. It doesn’t always have to be the mother who only works part-time because of her children, but also men who report on their flexible working hours. Not just employees, but also managers and directors. That’s important for breaking down prejudices and establishing flexible working as something quite normal.

Flexible working does not work in all industries. Can every company still become a New Work company?

Yes, by all means! Even in the hardest to flex industries – some leeway is possible. Of course, a construction worker can’t simply work from home. But they may be able to implement some form of time-based flexibility. For example, we worked on a groundbreaking project in Construction in the UK with the industry body Build UK and four major employers in the sector. We tested ways for teams to work different kinds of shifts onsite. Wellbeing scores shot up from 48% to 84% over the course of the 16-month project and the four employers are still rolling out flexible working. We also ran a large pilot with the NHS, in eight wards across three hospitals. Including on wards with patients with intense needs, such as cardio wards. By sharing the duty of rostering shifts out across the team, people’s work-life needs are considered more. Often, it’s little things that create more autonomy and satisfaction.

Thank you very much for the interview.