VUCA WORLD II

 

trabajo colaborativo

 

As we saw in our previous post (Office in VUCA World, Part I), the economic crisis and the VUCA World (in English, Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) with its demands of dynamism and flexibility, innovation, creativity and competitiveness have made necessary certain changes with a direct impact on companies and its organizational forms.

Companies have been obliged to implement new organizational forms, to incorporate new technologies and/or to adapt its working spaces to make the most and face the changes proposed by the new competitive environment.

Organizations have returned to the approach of offering clients global solutions embedding knowledge from different disciplines and leaving aside isolated compartments of the different company departments.

The work of today is more collaborative; work is done as a team, per projects, remotely and with greater use of information and communication technologies. The new approach for working spaces implies (in general terms) the reduction of personal working spaces and the increase of communication and interaction areas as well as high doses of flexibility.

New organizational forms in Companies

There is a broad variety of responses within the scope of how companies see themselves, their members and their environment, how they are internally organized and how they carry out and reward work, that illustrate the critical success factors of the new economy.

New approaches are focused on people and knowledge. These approaches seek to achieve flexibility, dynamism and the answers required by the new competitive environment.

Below we list some of the main trends in what refers to corporate organizational forms:

  • New organizational structures and coordination mechanisms.
  • Cultural changes – new values.
  • New assessment and compensation systems.
  • New working practices.
  • New organizational structures and coordination mechanisms

The simplification and outsourcing of the organizational structure is an upwards trend. In order to achieve a more dynamic and flexible organization, already incorporated companies are reducing their hierarchic levels and outsourcing the decision making process.

As for newly incorporated companies, especially those in the new technologies sector, they are already born with “liquid” structures (flexible or which adapt as the environment, circumstances and projects to be developed, change).

It is also frequent to promote team work giving greater importance to agile methodologies. We work in teams, many times created around projects, providing greater independence to people in terms of how, when and where the work is done. 

  • Cultural changes – new values

A new management style where communication is a priority begins to prevail. This change towards a model of a more participative leadership grants greater autonomy to individuals and teams, promotes innovation and creativity in addition to the information flow and exchange at all levels.

There is now greater client orientation (both internal and external), greater orientation to the progress of total quality and ongoing improvement culture, greater orientation towards results.

  • New assessment and compensation systems

Companies have implemented new systems for the assessment of performance which incorporate objective and subjective parameters. These parameters are conceived to focus the attention of the whole company not only on economic results but also on critical success factors which make possible these results and on the strategic objectives to be accomplished.

Just as assessment systems are changing, so does the way in which work is rewarded. Reward systems are increasingly focused on performance, both at an individual and team level, on the entrepreneurial spirit, knowledge and personal skills instead of on the hierarchic level or seniority.

  • New working practices

Some of the most extended working practices in addition to the increasing practice of teleworking mentioned in our previous post are:

  • Development of improvement projects focused on processes. From specific improvements such as the automation of duties within a certain department to the transformation of the business by, for example, their transformation of the e-business and the integration of the company’s value chain with that of their suppliers.
  • Subcontracting or outsourcing of services.
  • Boom of agile methodologies.
  • Implementation of ongoing improvement programs.
  • Practices arising from the compulsory digital transformation of the company: new structures, processes, incorporation of new competence profiles, new leadership styles…
  • Knowledge management and creation of a new position: “Chief Knowledge Officer”.
  • Promotion of communication policies both internal and external and to employer branding.
  • Reconsideration of different profiles. For example, support or administrative staffs are integrated in work teams with back office duties or start being in charge of in house services (value added services that encourage motivation and retention of employees in a very dynamic labour market).
  • Greater involvement of HHRR on the first business line, with new duties such as the management of diversity (generational, gender, ….), the employer branding, the adaptation of the company to digital transformation, etc.

 

The next post will deal with how these new working practices and organizational forms have transformed working spaces.

 

VUCA World

 

Existe ahora una mayor orientación al cliente (tanto interno como externo), al progreso de una cultura de calidad total y mejora continua, y a la orientación a resultados.

  • Nuevos sistemas de evaluación y compensación

Las empresas han implantado nuevos sistemas de evaluación del rendimiento que incorporan parámetros objetivos y subjetivos. Estos parámetros están diseñados para centrar la atención de toda la empresa no solo en los resultados económicos sino también en los factores críticos de éxito que hacen posible esos resultados y en los objetivos estratégicos que se quieren conseguir.

Así como los sistemas de evaluación están cambiando, también lo hace la manera de recompensar el trabajo. Los sistemas de compensación ponen cada vez más énfasis en el desempeño, tanto a nivel individual como de equipo, en el espíritu emprendedor, el conocimiento y las competencias del personal, más que en el nivel jerárquico o la antigüedad. 

  • Nuevas prácticas de trabajo

Algunas de las prácticas de trabajo que más se están extendiendo, además del creciente recurso al teletrabajo citado en el post anterior, son:

  • Desarrollo de proyectos de mejora centrados en los procesos. Desde mejoras puntuales, como la automatización de las tareas en un departamento concreto, hasta la transformación del negocio mediante, por ejemplo, su conversión al e-business y la integración de la cadena de valor de la empresa con la de sus proveedores.
  • Subcontratación o externalización de servicios.
  • Auge de las metodologías ágiles.
  • Puesta en marcha de programas de mejora continua.
  • Prácticas derivadas de la obligada transformación digital de la compañía: nuevas estructuras, procesos, incorporación de nuevos perfiles competenciales, nuevos estilos de liderazgo…
  • Gestión del conocimiento o knowledge management, y creación de un nuevo puesto: el “Chief Knowledge Officer”.
  • Impulso a las políticas de comunicación, interna y externa, y al employer branding.
  • Replanteamiento de diferentes perfiles. Por ejemplo, el personal de apoyo o secretariado, pasan a integrarse en equipos de trabajo con funciones de back office o a encargarse de los servicios inhouse (servicios de valor añadido que apoyan la motivación y retención de empleados en un mercado de trabajo muy dinámico).
  • Mayor implicación de RRHH en la primera línea de negocio, con nuevas funciones como la gestión de la diversidad (generacional, de género…), el employer branding, la adaptación de la compañía a la transformación digital, etc.

En el siguiente post, abordaremos cómo estas nuevas prácticas de trabajo y formas de organización han transformado los espacios de trabajo.