New work needs a new mentality!
Why it's more important to focus on results instead of sticking to the obligation to work from home. Thomas Kuckelkorn, Manager PR & Communications at BCT Deutschland GmbH
Published in: DiALOG - THE MAGAZINE FOR DIGITAL CHANGE | 2021
It was long foreseeable that the digital office would become an existentially important factor in the modern working world. However, the fact that a global pandemic would trigger a boom in new, flexible forms of work probably came as a surprise to most of us. With video meetings, virtual events and working from home, many companies had to establish new digital working and communication methods on an ad hoc basis in spring 2020.
Since then, the much-cited "new normal" has presented the corporate world with major organisational, legal and technical challenges. The focus is on the home office. According to a survey conducted by the digital association Bitkom in December 2020, around 45 per cent of all employees in Germany worked exclusively or partially from home; before the pandemic, this figure was just 18 per cent. There is now even talk of making working from home compulsory.
Home office as an all-purpose weapon?
However, anyone who merely wants to move the location of a job from the company office to the employee's private premises and otherwise keep everything else the same is not thinking in terms of future-oriented working. Although the term "home office" may sound innovative, the current debate reveals that, unfortunately, it often hides a rather old shoe in the realisation of traditional teleworking. This does little to change the basic concept of work: employees generally do the same tasks at the same times within the same tightly meshed structures.
New mentality for self-determined work
If we want to change the future of work in concrete terms, we need a fundamental willingness for more resilience and agility in business - and a comprehensive strategy for a "new way of working": Instead of insisting on a consistent obligation to be present to fulfil working hours, entrepreneurs should focus on the qualitative output of their employees. To this end, they should give them the space and freedom to organise their working hours flexibly within an agreed framework, in addition to their place of work. This is because employees are often better able to judge for themselves where and how they can do their work more effectively, efficiently and - just as importantly - with pleasure. What we need is a new approach to synergistically combine work and life, also in the interests of employees.
In addition to more independence on the part of employees, this new way of working requires entrepreneurs and managers to adopt a management style with fewer hierarchies and more trust, as well as a correspondingly open organisational structure and culture. The result is a changed mentality at all levels, in which work is also completely rethought: Results-orientated, flexible and self-determined.
Last but not least, this new way of working also requires suitable digital technologies in the area of information management that enable data to be accessed reliably, managed securely and processed effectively and efficiently, regardless of time and location. Cloud-based software solutions are quickly ready for use, adaptable and scalable and offer many advantages over the traditional on-site installation of IT applications, particularly in terms of security. In this way, the temporary home office becomes a functioning digital office.
Outlook
Whichever way you look at it: Office work will certainly be different after corona than it was before. However, the current trend towards working from home can only be a small building block in establishing a new world of work. What we need is a new approach to synergistically combine work and life in the interests of employees. Then the "new way of working" will become a promising concept for the future of office work, regardless of the pandemic.
In his role as Manager PR Communications, Thomas Kuckelkorn is in charge of corporate communications and public relations at BCT GmbH. The software company BCT GmbH has been driving the digitalisation of the working world with its cross-industry information management technology since 1985. The digital office expert relies on close cooperation with its channel partners from the ECM, ERP and hardware sectors as well as from the consulting and system house sector, among others. These partners are expanding their existing product and service portfolios with BCT's connectable software components. This enables them to provide their customers with transparent, secure and efficient information processes. The Dutch IT company has been represented in Aachen as BCT Germany since 2010. Including the headquarters in Sittard and a branch in Belgium, a total of around 140 employees work for BCT. The software developer's solutions are currently used by over 150,000 users in organisations from industry and commerce, healthcare and the service and public sectors. They use them to process more than 120 million documents every year. BCT is a member of digitalHUB Aachen e. V. and is involved in other professional organisations throughout Germany such as Bitkom e. V. and eco - Association of the Internet Industry e. V.
www.bctsoftware.com