If we think about it, it is quite clear that the progress made in information and technology hasn’t reflected in our industrial operations. We still use two hundred-year-old hierarchical command system at organisations in this era of self-employed entrepreneurs and well-networked individuals.
However, those days are finally getting over. Today, we are facing the change we need, the “New Ways of Working” in our industries. This blog elaborates further on how to speed up this process of change in our organisations.
What is meant by New Ways of Working?
New ways of Working is a transformational approach to our existing work system backed by digitalisation. Technological innovations are integrated into the daily activities to make this possible. Employees get to decide when they work, which communication medium they use and where they work. This way, the workers get more flexibility and improve their productivity. To achieve this model, various drivers can be managed such as physical workplace and management practices. The past management styles and barriers are removed to enable coordination of multigeneration workforces.
Requirements for NWoW
For an organisation to implement NWoW and become agile, it requires to pull apart the traditional silos and operational techniques. The goal of this new system is to create a positive employee experience through empowering and enabling them. To make this possible, a transformation is required on how people think, how people act and what they do and deliver.
Change in How People Think
An adaptive mindset is one of the primary requirement for a truly agile capability. In this way, we should be open to all the possibilities, continuous learning and new methods. Rather than having a fixed mindset towards growth, NWoW emphasis on individuals with a mindset to explore new options. These kinds of thinking evolve and adapt to meet challenges on this fast-changing conditions.
Change in How People Act
Agile capabilities of a team or person rely on their ability to collaborate, ability to adapt, willingness to work outside the area of expertise and openness towards feedback. In a group, the mindsets of the whole members should be towards adaptive thinking. With such teams, adaptive practices such as enterprise social networking, working out loud and visual management can be comfortably carried out. It will help to promote co-creation and deep engagement further.
Change in What You Do and Deliver
After putting agile mindsets and behaviour together, New Ways of Working requires embedding of these new ways to the organisational culture. The leaders of the organisation should be keen to model and reward the proper behaviours. Recruiting the right people will make things easier because agile practices work best when all the team members demonstrate agile behaviour and thinking.
The changes required in an organisation to utilise New Ways of Working are not very unreasonable. If we think about the shift in power, we know that conventional hierarchical power models are failing to motivate people. Connection and collaboration are replacing the command and control system. Sooner or later we will find ourselves in workplaces that are catching up with this new model. For quicker adaptation, we will be required of an agile mindset, behaviour and practice.