The future of work is characterized by the rapid progress of digitization, which describes the transformation of analog into digital media. Buzzwords such as Work 4.0 and individualization of work are gaining popularity. The generational shift, especially the flow of generations Y and Z into the world of work, demands new forms of employee management, working hours, work locations and collaboration. Established forms of work are consequently being replaced and expanded by new ones. One example of this is the replacement of the traditional corporate office with a home office. The resulting physical distance between employees and the company will present managers with a wide variety of challenges in the future.
The paper shows the effects of this spatial distance of employees from the company with regard to the opportunities and tasks of their managers and how this can be dealt with.
Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. Communication within the company
3. Media-digitized communication
3.1 Choice of targeted media
3.1.1 Written media
3.1.2 Verbal media
3.2 Humanity and sensitivity
4. Employee management via digital media
4.1 Motivation and influence of employees
4.2 Interpersonal relationships
5. Redefining leadership
5.1 Control vs. Trust
5.2 From boss to partner
5.3 Redefinition of services
6. Conclusion and outlook into the future of work
Bibliography
1. Introduction
The future of work is characterized by the rapid progress of digitization, which describes the transformation of analog into digital media. Keywords such as work 4.0 and individualization of work are gaining popularity. The generational change, in particular the flow of generations Y and Z into the world of work, requires new forms of employee management, working hours, places of work and cooperation. Established forms of work are therefore replaced and expanded by new ones. An example of this is the replacement of the classic office in the company by a so-called home office. Here, employees of a company work in their home offices instead of being present in the company. In this scientific work, due to the limited scope, it is assumed for reasons of simplification that a home office employee does the work flexibly and completely from home. The resulting spatial distance between employees and the company will present managers with a wide variety of challenges in the future.
In the course of this seminar paper, it will be shown what effects this spatial distance of employees to the company has with regard to the possibilities and tasks of their managers and how this can be dealt with.
Based on the change in coexistence already taking place today due to demographic change - which is understood to mean the decrease in the proportion of younger citizens in society1 - and digitization is being investigated, how employee management changes when communication is only possible via digital media instead of "face-to-face". The subject of investigation will also be which media are used today and what advantages or disadvantages these entail. The focus here is on interpersonal interaction via media communication. By looking at leadership in the classical sense and the following comparison of leadership opportunities over spatial distances, it is shown which challenges managers must be able to cope with when managing employees in the home office.
2. Communication within the company
The established form of collaboration in an office complex gives a clear picture: Managers and employees work at the same time in the company building next door to each other and meet every day. The following section explains what digitization means, how it already shapes the everyday life of managers in the office today and how communication takes place today. This forms the basis for the question of the extent to which management options and tasks change when one or more employees work from home.
Personal contact on site enables direct communication between the two parties. The concept of communication includes not only the verbal exchange of information, but also non-verbal signals through gestures and facial expressions.2, which clearly puts the significance of a personal conversation above that of a medial form of communication. Today, due to the digitization of work, media such as e-mail, telephone or chat are increasingly being used for communication within the company headquarters. The non-verbal context is therefore already eliminated in the office with these forms of information exchange, but if necessary, personal contact can be sought at any time. A pitfall of the supposedly fast and uncomplicated media communication quickly becomes clear: an e-mail just received or a ringing telephone can be ignored. Late processing and loss of time are the result. Right from the beginning of this seminar paper, it becomes clear that digital communication also causes changes in the everyday work of managers in the company, not only through employees in the home office. But more on the challenges of digital communication later.
If a conversation takes place in person "face to face", this offers the opportunity to ask questions without loss of time and to underline the statements by rhetorical means. Although it should be noted here that the personal exchange does not necessarily contribute to effective and fast processing. Conversations can also go nowhere or even be blocked. The interpersonal relationship and the classic "getting to know each other" also play a considerable role in everyday working life. Anyone who knows each other and does not only formally exchange information via different media demonstrably deals with each other differently.3 Misunderstandings can therefore be avoided through personal contact and the reactions and behavior of the other person are classified differently by the knowledge of his personality.
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1 cf. Fredersdorf et al. (2008), P. 9.
2 cf. Steiger/ Lippmann (2013), p. 238.
3 cf. Thomas (2014), p. 37 ff.
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