How do you find the employee 4.0? What can you expect from him or her, does this person even exist and how do you keep them happy?
Employee 4.0: What does this person look like? There are constant updates and new versions of every app, but the person remains the same - human. Imperfect, but with charm, and in a permanent race against the speed mania. New concepts and technologies sweep over us day after day. In a way, humans are routine animals. We love rituals and familiar processes, peppered with adventures, new challenges and ideas.
But what happens when the routine factor is completely sidelined? When adventure and challenge become the new routine? Will we still be able to keep up, or will we at some point desperately look for the off or stand-by button?
So what can HR do in concrete terms to keep employees happy, "guarantee" a continuous flow and avoid both under-challenging and over-challenging them?
Let's take a closer look at the recruiting process: the newcomer joins the team with vigour, learns diligently, is trained after a few months, joins the experienced colleagues after 2-3 years and benefits from a wealth of experience - routine sets in.
Stop. That was yesterday. Wrong film..
The newcomer joins the Team with vigour, familiarises themselves, familiarises themselves, familiarises themselves. Endless loop? Software from the cloud develops and changes so dynamically that knowledge has to be updated every six months. Permanent learning becomes an absolute must.
But how does this work in day-to-day project work? Customers rightly expect consultants to have experience and to have already successfully implemented things for others.
The answer lies in knowledge management, learning and, in particular, social learning.
Distributing knowledge, making it accessible, organising learning as a fluid process that is not even perceived as "learning" by the individual. Take new employees on board immediately; establish forums, wikis, how-to's to promote the exchange of knowledge and the creation of new knowledge. Form knowledge networks. SuccessFactors Jam can provide a platform for this - social media in the company and for the company.
But the best tools are useless if the wrong people are on board. This is the task of Recruitment: to find people who are not overwhelmed by speed and constant change. People with bite and stamina. Mental athletes, fighters, explorers. It is obvious that this also requires a rethink of the recruitment process.
Let's assume that we have found our employees 4.0 - they are busy learning around the clock and undergo a permanent auto-update process, so to speak. But the challenge continues: what can we do to prevent them from burning out? How can you create a comfort zone for each individual? Should they be kept in line with benefits? This is certainly not very helpful in areas where everyday business life is already like survival training. This is why the corporate culture must also undergo a process of renewal. Employees 4.0 are not looking for a run-of-the-mill benefits system and steep hierarchies. In a rapidly changing environment, they need a familiar, authentic, flexible working environment with flat hierarchies. Individuality instead of conformity. People instead of puppets. Courage instead of security. Collegiality instead of elbows. Loyalty instead of opportunism. In other words: a corporate culture that stands for values. A culture with heart.