3 X 5 tips for digital workflow: What does the future of work look like?

Home office and flexible working hours are not only controversial in politics. Many employees and employers are also struggling with virtual Teamwork and Guide, That's why we're giving 3 X 5 Digital Workflow Tips.

5 Tips: Fears of Workers and How Executives Handle It

Being able to work how and where you want - one would think that the home office is actually a paradise for employees. But they too have their worries and fears about the topic. According to Spiegelsurvey, 67,5 out of 5000 respondents would like fixed, regular working hours. From various studies criticize 5 typical reservations about working from home and flexible working, which are brought up again and again, are:

1. Cut off from informal channels: According to a study published by the Center of Human Resources Information Systems (CHRIS) at the University of Bamberg together with the Monster job exchange, 43,8 percent of the 7.040 respondents who work from home have fewer social contacts with colleagues and therefore run the risk of being cut off from informal communication . And 24,3 percent even fear reduced career opportunities.
2. No relationship building: A study by the management consultancy RW3 CultureWizard Among 30.000 employees shows: For 75 percent of respondents, it is difficult to develop trust in virtual teams. 79 percent complained too little time for relationship building and 71 percent too little sympathy. At 33 percent, half of the team members did not live in their own country, so different time zones make communication difficult. And 70 percent are bothered by cultural differences in conflict management, especially since 41 percent never met their virtual colleagues in person.
3. Missing feedback can be unsafe:  After 13 years in the home office, I know from my own experience what psychological challenges the home office can pose to employees: The lack of social contact can lead to loneliness. A lack of feedback, especially when it comes to the little things, can make you feel insecure. It is not for nothing that coworking spaces are very popular among freelancers, which precisely simulate the office feeling and provide opportunities for regular exchange and networking.
4. More self-discipline necessary: You also have to be in the Self-discipline home office moreso as not to be distracted by family, neighbors, the household or the nice weather. On the other hand, sometimes you have to force yourself to take breaks, exercise and a healthy diet - things that you might automatically join in the office. Those who are free to decide when and how much they work tend to work more and often to self-exploitation.
5. Fear of bad reviews: And a A survey conducted by the market and opinion research institute YouGov on behalf of Samsung among 1.039 employees and 301 managers shows that almost 80 percent of those surveyed contradict the statement that working from home prevents creativity and exchange in the team. In contrast, however, almost a quarter of the employees surveyed think that colleagues who are physically present in the office are rated better than those who work from home or from another location.

This shows that there is little Sinn simply introduce the home office: Executives have to deal with these not entirely unjustified fears of theirs Employees deal and together Solutions work out.

Corporate culture and leadership must fit

This includes a real one Change Process, the entire management and corporate culture and the employeeCommunication must be aligned with these changes. This does not happen overnight, but only step by step, but it is essential, otherwise the shot will go with great freedom fast backwards.

That's why it always leaves a stale aftertaste for me when managers expect personal responsibility from their employees and this apparently free Choice with working hours and place of work. If you listen more closely, you hear sentences like: “Of course everyone has to know for themselves how often they can be absent when management tasks or team decisions are pending”, which quickly put the employees under pressure to work around the clock. In fact, I believe that management can do a lot to make the home office experiment a success.

5 Virtual Guidance Tips: Keep teams together despite their physical separation

Ultimately, the particular challenge of remote working is to Team to virtually weld together, to lead and to enable a trusting cooperation despite physical separation. A task that is being dealt with more and more in the course of increasing global networking Companys have to deal with.

1. Increased organizational effort: A big problem in many companies is undeniably the increased organizational effort: How to reach colleague X if he prefers to work at night or in a different time zone? I experience again and again that employees want to grab the phone quickly. Here, rethinking and new technical tools are required: away from the dialogical, including the eMail involves towards the collective virtual work.
2. Working with online tools: Instead of talking about a project, colleagues can work on documents together, for example via Etherpads or project management tools such as Slack. Everyone knows what the other has contributed. And it saves time because you don't have to wait for others to edit or not know exactly which version of a document is the latest. Chat forums, wikis and digital boards also help all team members to find out about the project status and results anytime, anywhere.
3. Flurfunk simulate with tablets: When it comes to keeping teams virtually together, informal communication, the hallway radio, must also be taken into account. Sounds difficult because digital communication is usually earmarked and leaves little room for random encounters. at the American photography agency Shutterstock For example, mostly small teams work on projects over long distances and in different time zones. Are used here eMail, Skype and Google Hangouts as well as cloud-based collaboration tools such as Google Drive. But the normal office situation including the radio is also simulated. Many product developers work at different locations while working constantly talking to each other via tablets that they have placed at their desks.
4. Keep teams virtual: But how do you manage to keep a team together over spatial distances? This can be remedied, for example through the virtual coffee bar or the virtual lunch, regular virtual meetings and personal meetings where the whole team comes together. If such new forms of work have not yet arrived in the corporate culture and you just graft on the home office because everyone does it that way, I actually see black for this experiment.
5. Organize regular meetings: In spite of digitization, personal meetings are indispensable in the long run, as only a relationship builds between team members. It is therefore necessary to meet regularly in person - if that is not possible, at least Skype to use.

5 suggestions for the mobile working of the future

Nevertheless, it is worth questioning existing work routines and thinking about mobile work even further than is often the case. Because the previous discussion just doesn't go far enough for me and is conducted in much too small a manner. The home office also only shifts the work geographically from the Office home, but does not change the performance idea behind it: "Whoever works a lot achieves more". This results in the following for me Ask:

1. Inspiration: How about instead if work focused more on creating really creative ideas instead of just “working through” things?
2. Real Mobile Work: How about discussing how to really be mobile - for example when hiking or in other unusual places?
3. Mobile equipment: How would mobile devices have to look and be made to work like this? I'm thinking of new developments like foldable screens, which would definitely be an improvement to my working conditions.
4. Legal requirements: What must change socially and legally to promote and disseminate such forms of work? Does that have only advantages or disadvantages for many workers? And therefore such changes at all desirable?
5. Which developments do we want? Including Facebook is working on connecting the brain directly to mobile technology and controlling the Internet by thinking power, so to speak. Are such developments desirable and beneficial in terms of mobile working - or rather frightening.