The question of why we are going to work in the future actually involves three questions:
- Why does the economy need human resources when robots are cheaper and more reliable?
- Why does politics need human resources when overall prosperity is not dependent on full-time employment?
- Why do we, as a society, need human manpower if we are not to survive?
The currently prevailing concept of work was developed more than 100 years ago as part of Frederick Taylor’s industrial revolution. The core of this is the separation between work preparation management tasks and the process-controlled execution of these tasks. But not least thanks to technological progress, this concept is now obsolete.
The executing force is increasingly provided by robots and algorithms. On the other hand, management, leadership, creativity and innovation are no longer only distributed among a few managers. On the contrary. Much of human labor will be based on these skills in the future.
In order to take this development into account, many new ideas and concepts have emerged over the past few years, which are not summarized quite clearly under the term New Work.
We are facing radical change. This is the end of work as we know it.
Today, more than ever, we have the opportunity to radically and sustainably improve the working environment and thus the lives of people. But it is only when we have found plausible answers for the economy, politics and society as to why we will work in the future that we will be able to think about what and how we will work.
But there’s nothing to worry about. Many of these answers already exist. Through this Journal we would like to explore, test and talk about them.