Roundtable on Work 4.0

In order to better understand the world of work 4.0, I gathered several experts and debated this topic for 4 hours. In the following I would like to show the results and support them with quotes from the participants. More about the roundtable can be found here . The participants can be found in the following table.

The work 4.0

The future of work is discussed under the heading Work 4.0. There is no direct definition of this, but the term is also often used in marketing. In a round table For work 4.0, I worked with the participants to define initial guidelines on how work should look like in the course of digitization, and the following results were achieved:

• Work 4.0 has to be agile!
• Agility needs freedom!
• Good work is voluntary!
• The term “leadership” has to give way to “guiding”!
• Work will be more dynamic and short-cycle in the future!
• Work 4.0 is supported digitally!

This means that topics such as agility, freedom and voluntariness characterize the new world of work. One participant said: “So for me the first association with work 4.0 is the change from ‘work as a duty / must’ to ‘I can design something, I feel a purpose'” . The new work should also be supported digitally. To do this, a participant: “So digitization favors speed. If we still had pencil, paper and mail, that wouldn’t have been. “ and agile methods should contribute to making work more dynamic and short-cycle, according to the participants: “Well, I also believe that the Scrum issue has made a huge contribution to this.” This means that, unlike in the past, there will be a lot of small and rapidly changing work tasks. For example, a team leader used to give one employee 5-10 standard tasks per month, which is now more divided into 100 small tasks. In order to better understand this, I would like to explain the concepts behind Work 4.0 in more detail and give a few quotes from my participants from the roundtable.
Reading tip: What is work 4.0

New Work – work that is flexible in terms of location and time

Another point is work that is flexible in terms of location and time. One participant says: “So 30% is on average[im Home Office] . And […] home office[ist] of course no problem[und …] is often also approved. And working hours are also relaxed with us. There are no core working hours, you can come to us whenever you want. ” So it is possible that work can be done from anywhere, anytime. This is what the union’s executive committee also says in my round table: “Work wherever you want. With mobile devices this is no longer a problem at all. We have also created the company agreement in such a way that working hours are recognized from anywhere, i.e. theoretically also from the swimming pool. You document it. You can work from anywhere. Mobile work is an important topic.”
So, with a view to the future, it seems that we can work from anywhere, anytime. This is often described with the vision of New Work, which is shown in the following figure.
Reading tip: What is New Work

New and agile office complexes

There are also new office concepts. There should be a workplace for every activity. Different zones should be set up in the office for, for example, quiet and creative work. I know many medium-sized companies as well as corporations that are currently converting their buildings. One participant in my roundtable also said: “Every table is available, it is not booked in advance, because ultimately it makes the system even more complex if I had to think about it every evening: Where do I sit tomorrow? That would just be too much of a hassle. And so, in principle, every workplace is free for everyone. I can sit down wherever I want. ” The classic desk is dying out, according to the participants. The following figure illustrates a possible interpretation of the new office models using the example of noris network from Nuremberg, which kindly approved the pictures for me. So in the future we will not only work at any time and place, but also in the “right place” for every activity.
Reading tip: What is futurework

Agile teams

Furthermore, these new working models should not run using classic methods, but agile teams should organize themselves, arrange vacations with each other and in some companies even hire employees together. It will be exciting to see how this trend develops. The first effects of this finding can already be seen in agile Scrum teams (mostly in IT).
Reading tip: What is agile

Conclusion

The roundtable showed that the goal of the Work 4.0 projects is increased agility and voluntariness. Work 4.0 should be digitally supported, guided and more dynamic and short-cycle than current work. Work should also become more flexible in terms of time and location.
Overall, the roundtable showed that the need for novel concepts and models with which companies meet the design of Work 4.0 has existed for a long time. But only today have the framework conditions and the degree of digitization been created to actually implement these changes. Before that, on the one hand, the new office complexes had not yet been planned and, on the other hand, there was a lack of mobile technology (laptops and smartphones) and secure access as well as valid company agreements for mobile work and home office. So it remains exciting!
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Eat like an emperor in the morning, like a king at noon, like a beggar in the evening (unknown).

Tips for agile nutrition in everyday office life

My recommendation is never to give the body more than 500 calories at a time. Of course, the cheat day, i.e. a day on which you eat as much as you like, can be carried out, but you should stick to the nutrition plan on the other days. As soon as the body has used 200 of the 500 calories, you feel hungry again. So you replenish the calories to 500-600. The snacks serve this purpose. In this way you avoid the lunchtime low and regularly supply the body with energy, which it consumes directly and does not store it as fat. If the body has too many nutrients, it stores them and uses them to accumulate fat. My daily meal plan is as follows:

• 8:00 am breakfast
• 10:00 am snack 1
• 12:00 noon
• 15:00 snack 2
• 18:00 dinner

breakfast

For breakfast I often make myself a shake with raspberries, corn flakes, milk, protein powder and a little honey. This gives the necessary strength for the morning. The advantage is that the shake is made quickly and you can even have breakfast within 10 minutes. Of course, I always vary the shakes and try out new recipes.

Snack 1

Now you get hungry again around 10 o’clock. I like to take a roll with salmon or turkey breast with me. So you have energy again until noon and you are not so hungry at noon. Quark or a small bowl of corn flakes and a few nuts can also be eaten here.

Noon

For lunch I usually have something prepared at the beginning of the week. There are whole wheat pasta or peas and carrots with a little meat. Once a week I treat myself to a food truck. Because of the snack between meals, I am no longer so hungry at lunchtime and therefore do not fall into a lunchtime low because I no longer eat so much.

Snack 3

In the afternoon you get hungry again. Here I usually eat a yogurt and drink a glass of juice. This is how the vitamins fill up too. You also have the strength to tackle some tasks again and have 2 productive hours to go by 5 p.m.

dinner

In the evening I eat similar to lunch or sometimes I like a salad, which I can mix together quickly. Otherwise there is also like sheep’s cheese or a protein shake. Every now and then there is only one bread with a topping. So I stay true to the saying: “Like a beggar in the evening”.

Excursus: business lunch or buffet

There are also cases in which you are not at home and have something to eat with colleagues in a hotel, restaurant or buffet. Of course it is rude to unpack your Tupperware there. The simple tip here is just not to eat the greasiest food. Look at the buffet or on the menu for salmon, rump steak or fillet. Just avoid roasting or hearty dishes.

Sport besides everyday office life

In addition to everyday office life, I do moderate exercise and visit a gym. Once on Wednesday and once on Saturday or Sunday. So that I can also go during peak times, I am in a small, owner-managed studio. So I pay twice as much as with the chains, but have my peace and quiet and can train stress-free. I think that two training sessions are always possible in addition to everyday life and also contribute to productivity.

Conclusion

It is not difficult to eat in the office. This is also possible in addition to a stressful everyday life. Of course, besides my method, there are certainly many more ways and it is certainly even healthier. However, I get along well with this plan and have my desired weight, feel fit and am productive. I often hear people say that shopping for all those groceries is very stressful and that they don’t add them. I feel the same way, that’s why I order from the every week Rewe delivery service . Take a look at that too! Below you can also find a picture of what foods I take to the office on a typical day. But in conclusion one can say: moderate exercise and 5 small meals a day already help massively.

• Tip: Rewe delivery service

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What is Industry 4.0

There are numerous definitions of Industry 4.0 and I also ask myself: What is Industry 4.0? So says, for example BDI : Industry 4.0 stands for the fourth industrial revolution. After mechanization (Industry 1.0), mass production (Industry 2.0) and automation (Industry 3.0), the Internet of Things and Services is now finding its way into production. Industry 4.0 technologies enable outstanding growth opportunities and competitive advantages for Germany as a business location. Forecasts assume that companies can use Industry 4.0 to increase their productivity by around 30 percent.
The Gabler Business Lexicon sees it more as a marketing term: “Industry 4.0” is a marketing term that is also used in science communication and stands for a “future project” by the German federal government. The so-called fourth industrial revolution is characterized by the individualization or hybridization of products and the integration of customers and business partners into business processes.
That too Magazine viernull describes the development of Industry 4.0 with a historical development: “Industry 4.0” stands for the “fourth industrial revolution”. Before that, there must have been three other revolutions – at least this is what the creators of the term suggest: “Industry 1.0” means the era of mechanics that began in the 18th century, “Industry 2.0” refers to the era of electronics (20th century). Century) and “Industry 3.0” according to this logic stands for the increasing automation of industry through the use of office IT since the 1970s.
So it seems that this is the fourth industrial revolution and there have been three more. I have summarized examples and metaphors for this in the following illustration.

Components of Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 is also a kind of collective term for many services and products. On the side of the BDI I have summarized these in the following figure. Certainly these are not 100% complete, but mostly the core aspects. Since it is primarily a term from the government, I mainly used the government pages and the BDI as sources.

With Social machines says the BDI: As in social networks on the Internet, intelligent machines exchange information with one another. You can organize yourself independently and coordinate processes and appointments together.
Global Facilities says according to the BDI: Machines do not only exchange data within a production facility. A company’s machines are also networked with systems from suppliers and customers. If a supplier fails, alternative suppliers are analyzed in real time with regard to their capacity utilization or costs and automatically commissioned.
Of the Augmented operator means people as “watchdogs”. So says the BDI: In the smart factory, people remain a central part of production. As an “augmented operator”, he controls and monitors the production processes in the production network.
Smart Products means that every produced part has a chip with it, which contains or sends information about it. V irtual production thinks that there will be abstract and virtual images of factories. Unfortunately, there is hardly a clear example on the subject and I am currently not in a position to describe it better. If you have anything about it, feel free to write it in the comments.
Smart Services thinks that in the future billions of intelligent products will be connected to the Internet during their service life and huge amounts of data ( Big data ) about your own operating and product status in a data cloud.
Industry 4.0 largely stands for networking and the intelligence of machines. It is hardly an argument that this fact leads to a lot of data and that the term big data is therefore closely linked to Industry 4.0 as well as topics relating to data protection. Read more on the Page of the BDI and definitely take a look at my book suggestions Digitization in medium-sized companies .

Examples of Industry 4.0

But what exactly is Industry 4.0 and what is not? In the following I have looked for examples and show some fictional examples as well as real scenarios from Bremen.

That’s what he says Industry signpost : An example of Industry 4.0 is when “The parts know who they are”. This “intelligent factory” is called “Open Integrated Factory Showcase. It shows the networking of production and IT. The special thing about the factory is that the workpieces inform the machine how they are to be processed.

As an example of this scenario, you also state that a machine can produce 16 different variants of the product. The workpieces contain information about the production process. The parts know who they are and can talk to the system. The parts always go to the correct station and tell it: “I am this part, in this version and now please process me correctly”. So you can use Industry 4.0 to produce a wide variety of product variants on one production line.

Now I have to go to the information page Digitization in Bremen Found eight specific examples, some of which I would like to present to illustrate Industry 4.0. All examples are from the same page and partially copied.
Example 1: Ancillary cost bills are time-consuming for Bremen Airport – for the more than 100 individual transactions, meter readings for water and gas must be read and billed. With digital meter reading and intelligent document management, the airport was able to save an enormous amount of time.
Example 2: Robots are becoming more complex and more powerful. A Bremen logistics company made use of technical progress to transport returns of online orders fully automatically through a warehouse. This saves time and money and takes the strain off employees.
Example 3: An industrial service provider in Bremen uses the cloud in a targeted manner to allow distributed teams to work with workflows. All work processes relating to HR and personnel are completely relocated online. The employees of the personal office are located all over Germany and there is little need for coordination.
Example 4: Monitoring heavy transports from several thousand kilometers away for progress, transport damage or improper handling – a Bremen logistics service agency dreamed of this for a long time. With an Industry 4.0 project, logistics monitoring was introduced, which made it possible to monitor the load.
All examples are detailed on the page The Digitization of Bremen listed. In conclusion, I will go into the examples again.

Conclusion

The article deals with the question: What is Industry 4.0? Industry 4.0 is a term that is primarily a project of the federal government and is not actually used abroad. This is the fourth industrial revolution, which deals with the networking and intelligence of machines. There are already numerous examples such as chips and monitoring systems for freight as well as machines that can automatically maintain. People should increasingly take on the role of watchdogs. With Industry 4.0, problems such as big data and data protection are becoming more relevant than before for German companies.
Reading tip: Article on agile production
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What is Industry 4.0

There are numerous definitions of Industry 4.0 and I also ask myself: What is Industry 4.0? So says, for example BDI : Industry 4.0 stands for the fourth industrial revolution. After mechanization (Industry 1.0), mass production (Industry 2.0) and automation (Industry 3.0), the Internet of Things and Services is now finding its way into production. Industry 4.0 technologies enable outstanding growth opportunities and competitive advantages for Germany as a business location. Forecasts assume that companies can use Industry 4.0 to increase their productivity by around 30 percent.
The Gabler Business Lexicon sees it more as a marketing term: “Industry 4.0” is a marketing term that is also used in science communication and stands for a “future project” by the German federal government. The so-called fourth industrial revolution is characterized by the individualization or hybridization of products and the integration of customers and business partners into business processes.
That too Magazine viernull describes the development of Industry 4.0 with a historical development: “Industry 4.0” stands for the “fourth industrial revolution”. Before that, there must have been three other revolutions – at least this is what the creators of the term suggest: “Industry 1.0” means the era of mechanics that began in the 18th century, “Industry 2.0” refers to the era of electronics (20th century). Century) and “Industry 3.0” according to this logic stands for the increasing automation of industry through the use of office IT since the 1970s.
So it seems that this is the fourth industrial revolution and there have been three more. I have summarized examples and metaphors for this in the following illustration.

Components of Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 is also a kind of collective term for many services and products. On the side of the BDI I have summarized these in the following figure. Certainly these are not 100% complete, but mostly the core aspects. Since it is primarily a term from the government, I mainly used the government pages and the BDI as sources.

With Social machines says the BDI: As in social networks on the Internet, intelligent machines exchange information with one another. You can organize yourself independently and coordinate processes and appointments together.
Global Facilities says according to the BDI: Machines do not only exchange data within a production facility. A company’s machines are also networked with systems from suppliers and customers. If a supplier fails, alternative suppliers are analyzed in real time with regard to their capacity utilization or costs and automatically commissioned.
Of the Augmented operator means people as “watchdogs”. So says the BDI: In the smart factory, people remain a central part of production. As an “augmented operator”, he controls and monitors the production processes in the production network.
Smart Products means that every produced part has a chip with it, which contains or sends information about it. V irtual production thinks that there will be abstract and virtual images of factories. Unfortunately, there is hardly a clear example on the subject and I am currently not in a position to describe it better. If you have anything about it, feel free to write it in the comments.
Smart Services thinks that in the future billions of intelligent products will be connected to the Internet during their service life and huge amounts of data ( Big data ) about your own operating and product status in a data cloud.
Industry 4.0 largely stands for networking and the intelligence of machines. It is hardly an argument that this fact leads to a lot of data and that the term big data is therefore closely linked to Industry 4.0 as well as topics relating to data protection. Read more on the Page of the BDI and definitely take a look at my book suggestions Digitization in medium-sized companies .

Examples of Industry 4.0

But what exactly is Industry 4.0 and what is not? In the following I have looked for examples and show some fictional examples as well as real scenarios from Bremen.

That’s what he says Industry signpost : An example of Industry 4.0 is when “The parts know who they are”. This “intelligent factory” is called “Open Integrated Factory Showcase. It shows the networking of production and IT. The special thing about the factory is that the workpieces inform the machine how they are to be processed.

As an example of this scenario, you also state that a machine can produce 16 different variants of the product. The workpieces contain information about the production process. The parts know who they are and can talk to the system. The parts always go to the correct station and tell it: “I am this part, in this version and now please process me correctly”. So you can use Industry 4.0 to produce a wide variety of product variants on one production line.

Now I have to go to the information page Digitization in Bremen Found eight specific examples, some of which I would like to present to illustrate Industry 4.0. All examples are from the same page and partially copied.
Example 1: Ancillary cost bills are time-consuming for Bremen Airport – for the more than 100 individual transactions, meter readings for water and gas must be read and billed. With digital meter reading and intelligent document management, the airport was able to save an enormous amount of time.
Example 2: Robots are becoming more complex and more powerful. A Bremen logistics company made use of technical progress to transport returns of online orders fully automatically through a warehouse. This saves time and money and takes the strain off employees.
Example 3: An industrial service provider in Bremen uses the cloud in a targeted manner to allow distributed teams to work with workflows. All work processes relating to HR and personnel are completely relocated online. The employees of the personal office are located all over Germany and there is little need for coordination.
Example 4: Monitoring heavy transports from several thousand kilometers away for progress, transport damage or improper handling – a Bremen logistics service agency dreamed of this for a long time. With an Industry 4.0 project, logistics monitoring was introduced, which made it possible to monitor the load.
All examples are detailed on the page The Digitization of Bremen listed. In conclusion, I will go into the examples again.

Conclusion

The article deals with the question: What is Industry 4.0? Industry 4.0 is a term that is primarily a project of the federal government and is not actually used abroad. This is the fourth industrial revolution, which deals with the networking and intelligence of machines. There are already numerous examples such as chips and monitoring systems for freight as well as machines that can automatically maintain. People should increasingly take on the role of watchdogs. With Industry 4.0, problems such as big data and data protection are becoming more relevant than before for German companies.
Reading tip: Article on agile production
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Agile administration

In the first Google search I found a page that deals extensively with the topic of agile administration. In this blog find the drivers and reasons for one agile Administration, which I briefly summarize in 3 key points:

• large number of refugees,
• Authorities as service providers and
• new technological possibilities.

It is not an open secret that nobody really likes going to an authority and that the potential for agility is very high here. About this says the blog :

Thinking in terms of responsibilities is a central cultural pattern in our administrations. For each task there is a responsible administrative level and in this one responsible authority, office or subject area. Complex tasks – approval of commercial settlements, care of young people in socially disadvantaged families, finally reception and integration of refugees – are broken down as best possible into individual bites that are tailored to the responsibilities (agile-verwaltung.org)

The blog also gives an example that I would like to quote: In one federal state, the State Environment Agency is the competent approval authority for applications for the construction of larger wind farms. However, another 12 authorities are to be involved in this. The questions that arise from the application are divided into 13 seemingly independent packages and assigned to 13 clerks. These clerks usually never see each other.
But the article didn’t give me a lot of answers, which is why I looked further. On the Bearingpoint blog I found a whitepaper that gives 5 levers for agile administration. These are:

• strategic control and resource management
• flexible and adaptive organizational structures
• strategic human resource management
• adaptable and customer-oriented IT
• Culture and versatility

In the first point, the whitepaper calls for strategic and holistic thinking. The whitepaper cites the following as an example: With the continuous target and task control, the Federal Insurance Office introduced an instrument that has already been used successfully for several years. In an annual cycle, tasks are viewed critically on the basis of defined goals and optimization measures are agreed. The implementation is monitored in an implementation controlling.
In the second point, the whitepaper recommends implementing the goals set out in point 1 quickly. The whitepaper gives as an example: Administrative processes are recorded in the National Process Library and made available to other authorities for similar tasks. This way, best practice solutions can be used to learn from one another.
The third point deals with personnel management. Typical HR topics are covered, from recruiting to qualification. Example: The Federal Foreign Office recruits, develops, qualifies and plans the deployment of personnel on the basis of requirement and competence profiles. Requirement profiles describe which performance can be expected of a job holder to what degree for which task. The competence profile shows to what extent the requirements are met and in which area there is still potential.
Customizable IT, which will be discussed in the next paragraph, and the culture of adaptability are still in focus. For more information, see the whitepaper or my book recommendations to digital change. In the following figure I have briefly summarized the drivers and fields of action.

Digital administration

We are on the way from Age of knowledge into the digital age . Everywhere you see advertising and case studies for IT and digitization in the public sector. For this reason I took a closer look at the keyword: digital administration.
The government program Digital Administration 2020 can be found very quickly. Here authorities are supported by the state in digitization. According to the Homepage of the Federal Government The following projects are currently being promoted:

• the portal network with the aim of providing citizens and companies with easy-to-find, secure access to administrative services online,
• the introduction of electronic files (e-files),
• the receipt and processing of electronic invoices,
• the digitization of federal procurement processes,
• the cross-institutional digitization of the legislative process,
• Open data.

Also found on the following page an evaluation report on the progress and successes of the state initiative. But it remains unclear for me and certainly for you as a reader what exactly constitutes a digital administration. The Management consultancy T-Systems provides solutions for digital administration with so-called e-government. So the advice on your blog says: New services such as the electronic identity card (nPA), online citizen service portals or electronic files (e-files), but also joint projects between different areas such as the police or the judiciary, are already providing valuable approaches. The goal is clear: simpler and more user-friendly administrative services as well as more efficient processes in public administration that save costs and time. Citizens, companies and administrations benefit equally from this. Within a digital administration, information is always up-to-date, individual procedures can be processed much faster, and cross-agency collaboration is simplified.
But what does that look like in concrete terms? in the Blog kammunal.de I found a nice example for a digital administration: A vision for digital management: a private buyer purchases a car from a private seller. The seller logs on to the website of the motor vehicle authority, selects his registered car and clicks on “Sale”. Then he uploads the sales contract and registers the buyer. The buyer is called by email to confirm the purchase by means of a digital signature and to pay the administration costs online. Now the seller has to confirm the process again and the next day the vehicle documents for the new car owner arrive in the post office. The administrative effort for buyers and sellers is around ten minutes.
So there is a lot of potential for digitization in advice and numerous digital tools are intended to process applications better and improve the service for the citizens of our country. Of course, I also thought about it and changed the Consulting 4.0 model a little. I believe that virtual chats, full automation and online self-services are great solutions for me in the long run. A chat in particular would be great because you could save yourself going to the authorities and the online entry of applications would be convenient at the same time. Some recommendations can be found in the figure.

Conclusion: There is no shortage of ideas

The above example of buying a car is far more than a fictional scenario – it is already a reality in Estonia. But if you look at Google, you’ll find sentences similar to those in Blog Kommunal.de:

IT expenditures for public administration are extremely high. However, especially in the area of digital services for the citizen, none of this works (Kommunal.de).

You hear these and similar sentences as soon as you ask people about digitization in authorities. On the one hand it may well be headlines like ROBASO in the Federal Employment Agency (60 million euros project stop) or the high daily rates of McKinsey interns at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (2700 euros daily rate), on the other hand, I have no insight and do not know exactly the processes and hurdles of the authorities. However, I think that next to the headlines the efforts will show and we will experience more agility and digitization in administrations. Certainly, internal processes have to be broken up and IT systems have to be provided for a high scalability of millions of applications and documents. This is certainly not easy and there is also the shortage of skilled workers, which often forces you to resort to service providers. Issues such as the refugee crisis will certainly have taken up a lot of resources that were normally not planned for this purpose and that German authorities had to master really high challenges in the past year. However, I am confident that we will soon establish the new topics such as e-files etc. in Germany and that there will be significant changes.
To the end: Please answer a short question for me: What do you think is currently more important: Will increased digitization lead to more agility in authorities or do you think that higher agility should first be created in order to be able to tackle digitization?
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Work-life balance

Home office and mobile work stand for free time management, a lack of commuting, greater personal responsibility and the compatibility of work and family. Demotivating the need to control and distrust. Anyone who sits in the home office can work more independently or at least feels that way says that Magazine CIO . The magazine also says: Many employees who work long days complain that they “get nothing else”. I mean shopping, washing clothes, repairing the bike. All of this has to take place on the weekend because between Monday and Friday the person concerned only drives to work, works, drives home, eats, sleeps, gets up … etc. This shows a significantly higher work-life balance through mobile work.

Automation of activities

“Digital automation does not stop at IT administration either. However, IT administrators not only see the danger, but also the opportunity for more efficient work processes and are driving automation forward themselves.” says she Computer week . Let’s be honest: how often do we do annoying and monotonous tasks at work that can be automated? In the context of digitization, there is the opportunity to set up some of the most common and monotonous office tasks such as setting up databases, updating databases, creating Excel reports or finally automating mail processing. This in particular would increasingly relieve busy employees. Below is a diagram showing the top office activities that could easily be automated.

Location flexibility of distributed teams

Especially for medium-sized companies in rural regions or employees who are based in rural regions and do not necessarily want to move, a home office could soon be found or they could become part of a distributed team.
Above all, a single employee also has access to potentially more exciting projects within Germany without having to move. A distributed team is also good for the further development of the individual. There are no geographical restrictions, so an employee has access to significantly more knowledge resources. If an expert for a certain topic is only available in another country, he can still become part of a team. This also saves travel costs.

Innovation and creativity from distributed teams

Another advantage of the digital world of work is the increased effectiveness and productivity through technology. Networking and supporting employees can help focus on the essentials. Thanks to the distributed teams, the work can even be spread across different continents and time zones. You could even work on a project 24 hours a day.
Working in virtual teams is also more complex and varied for the employees and rarely causes boredom. There is also the chance to work with the best. A virtual team should be put together according to professional criteria.

Conclusion on the digital world of work

Digitization offers numerous opportunities for automation, innovation and a better work-life balance as well as more fun at work. In particular, work-life balance, monotony and fun at work are serious issues that companies currently deal with. This potential should certainly not be left unused.
In this text I have deliberately only dealt with the opportunities and not the risks of the digital world of work. Read my about this Article on the dangers of the digital world of work. Here I explain what an # office factory is. Here is an excerpt: Everything is standardized: name tags, the incoming and outgoing mail concept, uniform labels for folders, tidy drawers and the use of roll containers. Monotony in the service of efficiency. What do you think? How is your workplace developing?
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Digitization in the workplace: Home offices are usually better equipped than the office

In the Study by WiWo on digitization in the workplace can be summarized as follows: “ Digitization is more advanced at home than at work in the office – this is shown by a study among German office workers. “ The study continues: The road to a truly digital office is still a long one. Because at the moment, the majority of German workplaces are not equipped to enable knowledge workers to really work digitally. Many administrative activities that can be handled much faster digitally are still carried out in analog form. That is the central result of a study by the hosting service provider Host Europe, which is based on a YouGov survey of 1,000 employees with office workplaces.

Status quo on digitization in the workplace

The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs published a digitization monitor. The results of the study in a nutshell:

• The majority of all respondents in companies with at least 50 employees subject to social security contributions use digital information and communication technologies (ICT) in their everyday work.
• While only half of the low-skilled use ICT for work, almost all of the high-skilled do.
• Managers are equipped with mobile devices by their employers much more often than employees without managerial responsibility.
• Almost four fifths of employees have experienced a change in the technical equipment of their workplace in the last five years, and here too the proportion increases with the level of training.
• As a result of the technological change, employees experience physical relief and reduced demands on their own skills and competencies on the one hand, but also the need to develop and multitask on the other.
• Almost 30 percent of employees report physical relief due to technological innovations, 15 percent report decreasing demands on their own skills and competencies.
• Employees who perceive decreasing demands take part less often in further professional development.
• Almost 80 percent of employees see the need to constantly develop their own skills due to technological changes. 65 percent perceive a consolidation of the work.
• Employees who perceive a need for further development take part in further professional development more frequently.
• 13 percent of employees consider it likely that their job will be taken over by a machine in the future.
• Around a third of employees experience greater freedom of choice due to technological developments.
• More than half of the respondents perceive an increase in their own productivity.

This is how digitization is changing the world of work

In one Article on Xing the changes caused by digitization in the workplace are shown. First, the article mentions the increasing spatial and temporal independence that results from the fact that employees can use laptops and other mobile devices to carry out their tasks from almost anywhere and increasingly at flexible times. Employees are thus more flexible overall and can better reconcile work and private life.
The importance of lifelong learning was also mentioned. More than ever, employees have to be ready to constantly learn new things, as the half-life of knowledge is significantly decreasing.
In addition, there is a high level of automation and this makes work much easier. The article mentions: Doctors, for example, who are shown important information about their patients using augmented reality glasses while they are operating, or mechanics who are shown the next steps for their planned repairs virtually and flexibly.
The article also notes an increased complexity and says: Information is continuously made available to employees via a variety of channels. Multi-tasking and the ability to focus become a basic requirement, so to speak. The speed in the company is increasing overall – there is a constant acceleration, which employees have to adapt to with agility and flexibility.
Last but not least, the article by Xing states that in the digitized world of work people work more in team structures than before. Above all, interdisciplinary teams that extend across different company areas or company boundaries are gaining in importance in order to achieve the best solutions for complex problems.

Chances of digitization in the workplace

The subjects of the study by the BMAS say about the opportunities of digitization: The technological innovations have given me more freedom of choice in structuring my work. Currently, 32% of those questioned confirm this sentence. The graphic below also shows that women with medium qualifications perceive the increase in their own work performance slightly more often than men due to technological innovations. Only minor differences can be observed between employees with different training levels and between occupational groups.

Risks of digitization in the workplace

Just as there are opportunities, there are also risks. Of the Articles by education experts shows this. The first risk is a devaluation of human labor. Intelligent software makes human work superfluous in some areas or devalues it financially. Professions such as salespeople, copywriter, language teacher or bank clerk are losing their social importance. Internet platforms are now providing service providers or tradespeople at low prices.
Another risk is the stress-related illness due to constant availability. Employees who are constantly available and constantly have to take on new tasks often suffer from an increasing workload. The result is increasing stress-related illnesses such as burn-out or depression. Due to the increasing pressure, many people can no longer switch off from work and only think about their job in their free time.

Furthermore, data protection is a high risk. The blog of education experts says: The topic of data protection has also played a major role in the digitized world of work, and not just since Edward Snowden’s revelations. Employees need to be confident that their data is secure.
The last risk is the “transparent employee”. Here the blog article by the education experts says: Whoever gives information about himself on social networks, be it on Xing, Twitter or Facebook, may turn himself into a transparent employee. In the worst case, it can even damage his professional success. It is not uncommon for companies to use the personal profiles of their employees in a targeted manner to find out about them and to make inquiries.
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Conclusion: digitization in the workplace is coming!

In the future, the use of digital gadgets in the workplace will increase and human work will change through automation and intelligent machines. People will probably increasingly take over areas in which a high level of creativity and thinking is required. In the last part of the article we see that digitization in the workplace also harbors the risks. Employees have to learn to deal with digitization and “just switch off”. It is therefore important to build digital skills among employees and managers so that digitization can support people instead of becoming torture.
Reading tip: Opportunities of the digital workplace and Risks of the digital workplace
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Digitization of the world of work – the #office factory

In addition to many opportunities, the digitization of the world of work also harbors risks. In the following, I would like to present a few examples that show that the office can become a small factory with the highest level of efficiency.

The Lean Office …

Already the IG metal says: The new wave is taking hold of the office world. Lean office is the magic word that should make work more effective. Because the concept entails not only opportunities but also many risks, it is important that works councils are critical. In this way, the concepts from production are also introduced into knowledge work. The following quote illustrates the potential consequences:

“With us, the entire administration is affected. The HR departments, purchasing, accounting. There are no work steps, the work becomes more detailed, you lose track of the big picture. This also has an impact on pay. The simpler the job, the less you get paid. For example, our certificates are now written centrally. The HR department used to do this on site. Now there are people who do nothing but write testimonials all day. Before that, managers enter some information online about what the employee was like. And then text modules are cobbled together. They don’t even know the people. ” – A clerk at Siemens in the BrandOne .

Also the IG metal finds some cases with problems here: Everything is standardized: name tags, the incoming and outgoing post concept, uniform labels for folders, tidy drawers and the use of roll containers. There is a list of what belongs to the basic and additional equipment of a desk, personal items are only allowed to a small extent.

When transparency escalates …

Transparency can also escalate: caution is advised when executives can invite retrospectives and monitor everything through digital technologies. Otherwise, any over-optimization could even be negative for the company.

“We now meet every morning at a whiteboard and have to report whether someone has had an accident at work – whether someone has stuck their thumb in a drawer, cut their finger on paper or fallen over their office chair. It’s like in the production hall. And we have a more stringent form, where near-accidents are reported. So things that could have led to an accident at work. And that in the office. I mean, what should happen here? ”- A clerk in the administration at Pentair in the Brand one

If Scrum doesn’t serve agility …

Scrum is an agile method, which is based on the agile manifesto and can bring greater added value to the customer and increase the work satisfaction of the workforce. At least that’s the theory. However, if Scrum is used incorrectly, it can also lead to frustration, demotivation and the exercise of strong control.

“Five years ago we programmers were relatively independent. Today our work is broken down into small features that can be completed relatively quickly. There are these meetings where you have to put yourself together in the morning and say what you did the day before. It’s like the circle of chairs in kindergarten, only for adults. That was also an expression of confidence that I was given a complex task and left me alone for the time being. Now this control network is being laid over us. And you do these little tasks in a day or two, and then there’s the next one. And so on and on and on. ” A programmer at SAP in the BrandOne

Administrative areas: “Working on the digital assembly line” ……

In the study of the Hans Böckler Foundation administrative areas are specifically examined and it is said: “In the administrative areas, the fundamental upheaval is primarily expressed in standardization and process orientation”. The following quote from the study also shows the situation well:

“We only work with numbers here.” Digital workflows and processes determine the workflow, often specify the individual work steps in minute detail and structure the division of labor and cooperation with colleagues along the value chain. The digitized work item “flows” from work step to work step like on a “digital assembly line” (excerpt from the study )

So there is talk of a digital assembly line, which is easy to work through and the employees are increasingly frustrated. This is certainly not a goal of digital change. At the end of the study, the study summarizes: The upheaval outlined here in mental work in the digital transformation is combined with far-reaching social consequences – that of an increasingly “burnt-out world of work”.

Consulting and temporary work in the focus of digitization

Especially in my article too Consulting 4.0 I lost my first words about a change in the consulting business. For example, consultants and temporary workers are usually not yet subject to the regulations and can be treated “differently”, so to speak. I too often hear sentences from consultants like: “We are billed according to user stories”, “I can write down 15 minutes per ticket” or “If that were possible, the programmers would bill us according to the keys we pressed. Believe they are even working on it “. In such cases, the complete transparency of digital change can particularly affect external employees. However, this is mainly due to the often high cost pressure in IT services.

Conclusion: digitization must not be an end in itself

In the end it sums it up Brand one well together: In fact, what is currently happening in German offices is not entirely new. In the 1920s, offices were redesigned after the model of the Taylorist factories. The tasks were broken down into small steps. There were employees who only opened letters all day, only typed, only archived or who acted as couriers only to bring documents from one desk to another. Standardization made it easy to measure and compare employee performance: all you had to do was check how many letters someone wrote, how many documents they archived, or how many errands they had behind them.
Also the study of Hans Böckler Foundation warns: To put it bluntly, the development is at a crossroads: On the one hand, there are concepts in which mental work should also be organized “like on an assembly line”; on the other hand, there are models that primarily focus on empowering teams and improving collective learning and innovation processes.
In this article, I purposely talked about the negative aspects of digitizing the world of work. You should therefore also read my article on the Opportunities in the digital world of work . Because it’s not all all bad or all good. What do you think about the topic? Tell me in the little poll:
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Digital transformation  Workplace vs. home office

Already on mine Round tables the representatives of the union have shown that home office has already established itself in most German corporations and that virtually every knowledge worker can work at home at least one day a week. I am also allowed to work from home on a regular basis and, like many employees, I have set it up accordingly. A big screen, plants, a quiet corner and lots of light. In the following 2 sections I will deal with the results of the study and mix them with my own opinion.

Digital transformation  In the home office

If we look in the first part of the picture, we see WiFi, tablets, laptops, smartphones and even the cloud. According to the study, this is what a typical home office should look like. In conversations I also notice that many homes are equipped with, in some cases, the latest technologies and that even many younger professionals often want to work from home, because things simply work better from there. Digitization seems to be well advanced in the home office and People digitize themselves voluntarily and often even at their own expense . But what about in return in the workplace?

Digital transformation in the workplace

If we look at the other side, we notice that the  typical workplace compared to home office apparently not quite as advanced  is. I can still remember that when I was a consultant I often worked on-site at customers and even got a very old laptop with Windows XP. The pc was slow and the work very tedious. I was usually happy to be able to work remotely from my home office again. If you have too high a discrepancy between home office and workplace, it can happen that employees like “ taken back to the stone age “feel.
Nevertheless, I have in the roundtable from the participants from medium-sized companies and corporations lots  positive examples found. For example, laptops or thin clients are standard in corporations and small companies, and smartphones are actually more widely available than they were in 2016. I think that a lot has changed rapidly since the 2016 study, and clearly for the better.

Conclusion: more digital at home than at work

I think that the digital workplace is now more advanced than indicated in the study. Personally, I can even say that my workplace is just as digital as my home office. However, I also seem to be a bit of an exception. In my environment, the home office is often far ahead of the workplace. For this reason the question can be asked: Why does digitization work better in the home office than in companies? Isn’t it often accused that employees are inhibiting digitization? I can often hardly imagine that, since most of Generation Y and even X happily digitize themselves voluntarily and at their own expense with smart homes, Bluetooth toothbrushes and much more. Generation X usually even has a lot of fun connecting their SUVs to their new iPhone 7 or turning up the heating at home just before the end of the day.
But I have to  limit my observations to IT consultants and employees in the IT industry. However, this study also shows that people apparently are happy to be ready for digital transformation and, as in the Round table well said: Be curious and open to digital change . Overall, however, it has been shown that digital change is currently often advancing faster in the private sphere than in companies and we should ask ourselves: Why? What is your opinion? Do you see it the same way I do?
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Study: digital working world in practice

But how far is this change and how does it show itself? In order to capture the status of the topic: the digital world of work, I was with another research colleague at 24 companies between 20 and 50 employees in various industries and we took a look at digitization there. I will briefly summarize the results here.

Hardware equipment

Overall, it was found that PCs are basically available everywhere. However, the use of tablets, smartphones and laptops has increased massively. As a result, companies expect more mobile work and more flexibility.

Software equipment

It also became apparent that almost all companies are thinking about ERP systems and increasingly using software to support them. For example, the preparation of offers is replaced by a tool. However, there is currently only partial digitization. Although the tool is used to create the offer, it is still printed out and filed for administration purposes.

Fields of digitization

As a goal of digitization, the interviewed entrepreneurs named the support of employees through automation as a goal. A higher flexibility should also be achieved through cloud systems and customer loyalty should be increased through CRM systems. New potentials and increased sales were also mentioned.

Barriers to digitization

Many magazines say that companies are currently still waiting for the digital change. Most of the reasons given by the interviewed entrepreneurs were legal uncertainties, a lack of know-how, complexity and the high investment costs.

Conclusion: the digital world of work is coming!

The results of the survey clearly show that mobile technologies such as laptops and smartphones are not only part of everyday life in companies, but that tools should also become even more mobile. There is a desire to connect employees even more closely with the help of technology and to move processes to the cloud in order to make work more accessible and more accessible. CRM, document management and ERP systems are also already standard in many of the companies surveyed. Only in places are costs, complexity, a lack of know-how and legal uncertainty hurdles that still have to be overcome. For a detailed discussion of the results, read the Follow-up report on the round table: digital workplace .
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