Digital Revolution and Employees: Learn to be wiser early! Goethe already advised that. And this is also the recommendation of Prof. Dr. Jutta Rump in a conversation with Marc Wagner. Companies must shape New Work now if they want to shape their future (and not be overrun by it).
Detecon: Professor Rump, in your view, how does digitization affect the design of work?
Prof. Dr. Jutta Rump: I believe that all manual and cognitive routine activities, even in highly complex processes, are influenced, if not substituted, by digitization. Many companies are currently investing in these new technologies to generate cost advantages. It's like a natural process: you can't stop water, it finds its way. There will be negative and positive effects. If employees are affected by negative employment effects, they will need to be prepared for new fields of work. This takes time. Therefore, we should already think in these Big Pictures and integral scenarios today, have alternatives ready, and work with employees on the resulting questions early on. We will certainly also achieve positive employment effects: we are given time when we substitute draining routine tasks and delegate them to digital systems. When given time, one can invest it wisely. This creates new tasks, fields of work, new professions, or even new business fields.
Opportunities or harm, which outweighs?
Clearly the opportunities! As HR 4.0, we need to consider how we can shape a new, more appropriate, and more humane working world. Because now we have the opportunity to do so. When everything gets disrupted and broken down into its basic components, we can - provided we do not just wait, but act proactively - influence and change everything as we have always desired. We should consider this upheaval as a historic opportunity to combine this design task with all the insights we have gathered. Anticipating and acting is the principle on a normative, strategic, and operational level when we talk about digitization, about New Work.
What impact does digitization have on education and training? Is it sensible to continue to strongly differentiate between learning and working: kindergarten, school, secondary school, university? Then entry into the workforce, and ten years later the knowledge is no longer up to date.
You are right, we always thought that once we reach a certain educational level, we are experts and were convinced: "In a certain area, I am indispensable!" However, this self-image is currently dissipating. Because Google knows, and my notebook can do a thousand times more than I can. So what is actually my special value and contribution, my USP? What gives me security in this unpredictable work world? The answer to this is education as empowerment and the fundamental readiness for lifelong learning and relearning. Today, there is a growing pace of change. The cycles change quickly, but at the same time, it is nebulous what will come out in the end.
What competencies do I need to navigate in this world?
I think critical questioning, presence of mind, courage to experiment, social and cultural skills, emotional intelligence, creativity, inspiration, and empathy are crucial. Algorithms and AI cannot keep up with that. The digital world is based on mathematical formulas. That is IT, calculation, and the analysis of large data sets. Everything related to combinatorics, cognition, and positive factual knowledge will be done by machines in the future. But my social competence, the ability to associate unexpectedly, question stereotypes, influence the world creatively, and break patterns, that is something no electronic system can do. That's where I see the uniqueness, the unique selling point of a human in the digitized world. However, I believe that our current education and training system is not adequately prepared for this.
What does it mean for the organizational context, for companies?
A company should not wait for vocational schools to develop its employees. It should do it itself. Some large organizations are already doing this. Many medium-sized companies have also recognized this and are considering how to adjust the curriculum, adapt methodology and didactics, adjust the space, and introduce apprentices early on to agile structures. This also applies to university graduates. And the term 'further education' does not seem quite appropriate to me, not even the term 'personnel development' I am not sure if it fits. For me, it is more like highly individual guidance, coaching. It is about seeing the individual with their strengths and potentials and fostering them purposefully. The company should be seen as an architecture for education and development. And architecture refers to the space, the environment, the way we work, the ambiance, the culture, etc. Being agile means staying in motion without losing balance, and this is also what employability is about.
What role does HR play in creating such conditions?
Isn't learning about taking in data and information and processing it in your brain? I think that there needs to be actors who professionally create "the architecture" in which everything we have just described takes place, namely agility. Maintaining, promoting, and taking it to new heights is the task of HR coaches, who hold an operational toolbox and say, "I am the contact person here."
So no more standard processes?
Exactly! It is no longer the standardized recruiting process or personnel development process, and not even the standardized assessment process. HR is more than that; they are contact persons for specific issues. They provide support and architecture. HR is also a 'master builder' in this context. What can be standardized is done by the system, but for perceiving and unleashing the crucial ten percent, you need expertise plus intuition.
You are familiar with the concept of the Employee Experience Officer at Airbnb. The fragmented functions are again integrally considered in one place. What do you think of this concept?
That is good. HR must be the Core of Business. Almost everything depends on the workforce. When we talk about digital transformation, we are not just talking about business models and process and structural innovation or technology, but above all about the dimensions of social transformation. Work 4.0, work environment 4.0, employee 4.0, employment 4.0 - in network structures, this is the basic logic. When choosing an agile organizational form, the issue of People Management is indeed central! HR is CEO support, without being able to have CEO competence. This means HR 4.0 must have its own voice in the boardroom.
Isn't the role of the CHRO in Germany strongly influenced by works councils and co-determination?
Initially, the co-determination right led to the fact that in the past, lawyers were often chosen as Head of HR. But law and technology do not go well together in my opinion. In principle, you need someone who can also come from the field of computer science and at the same time navigate the HR topic wonderfully to bridge this gap.
So ideally, I would like to have a large group of freelancers whom I network together, who receive tasks as needed, but also have some form of security to bridge weak phases without an assignment. Do you see a role for co-determination in this? If so, what?
Well, we cannot abolish the co-determination right in Germany. It also contributes to the stability of our economy and the attractiveness of the location, no question about it. I also believe that we need minimum labor standards when entering a world of agility, when we talk about social and digital transformation with all the consequences outlined above. But this needs to be a modular, individual, flexible framework value, depending on the situation of the company, but also depending on the situation of the team and the individual. That, I think, is the only form that works. However, this also means that the principle of equality no longer works. It is often highly unfair to act based on the principle of equality when entering this incredibly dynamic world where there is no longer 'the' standard. We need to find an answer to that. This is essentially the major process we need to think about in terms of co-determination 4.0.
There is the phenomenon of bogus self-employment, and there are companies that prevent highly specialized freelancers from being employed, even though their use could generate enormous efficiency advantages. I have experienced this at Telekom myself. Are such regulations not a breeding ground for various dubious gray areas?
Indeed, that is the point where the baby is thrown out with the bathwater. A certain problematic group that needs to be protected is taken as a reference framework, and all others are projected onto it. And that is no longer feasible. Therefore, there needs to be a discourse on how to adjust the conditions and our laws. But in Germany, this is an incredibly slow process, it is a very emotional process, which is also not entirely free from envy and resentment.
How can a company that is taking the 'agile' path ensure that this 'self-organizing' does not lead to harm to employees, to self-exploitation?
I believe that certain prerequisites are needed: 1. A culture of trust, 2. firm, binding communication and cooperation rules, i.e., the more agile, the more stable communication and cooperation rules must be, 3. A team that watches out for each other, 4. Work packages and goal agreements (here you can see if someone is inclined to self-exploitation). Not everyone enjoys this hierarchy-free and self-determined environment; there are also people who find it relieving to work in structures that are rigid for us but safe and reliable for them
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