Work-life-balance…when will we finally make it…seriously?

Four generations at work…and who pushes the so-called work-life-balance into our lives? It’s not the mature generations, not the ones with a majority on this planet, not the ones working since ages. It’s the youngest, the ones which just enter the marketplace…

That’s sort of weird, right? Why is everyone talking about work-life-balance right now and not during the past decades? Didn’t jobs in general become physically easier, less dangerous, more fun, and better paid? So, why now? Is it the growing amount of burnouts, or the (related) fear of losing your job if you (or your child) get sick, forcing you to stay away from your workplace? And how does all of that relate to YouTubers, bloggers, and the global crowd of mind- and content-sharing individuals?

First of all, we need to make clear that for some the so-called work-life-balance still is just a buzzword. If work-life-balance would be taken seriously, then why would we still need to ask for a day of vacation? Shouldn’t there be – at least – a contingent of days which we can just take without asking for it and potentially getting a “no”? And why should the amount of vacation days be limited? If work would be integrated into life, then there is not even a real need to take “days off”. Think about it: vacation today means, that you are leaving work (the workplace) behind you, ignoring it, happily. As long as that is the case, there cannot be a “work-life-balance”. We are not leaving our life behind when we go to work either, do we!?!

I’m a generation Xer – not even a millennial  – although I really do experience in my own working habits and style since the last few years that I did and do change…and I also feel that change is happening anyways, and it’s ok to adjust…

Just look at Sweden: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sweden-introduces-six-hour-work-day-a6674646.html

Sweden’s companies are broadly reducing the working time by 25%. And guess what: the profitability – and “balance”, happiness, the well-being – increases. In fact, companies doubled their profits…though less time is spent by each individual at work (6 instead of 8 hours a day)…

And now let’s take a look at some reports on HR and the workforce of tomorrow…like, in 3-5 years from now: no matter if you look at studies from Eversheds, Winmark, KPMG, Manpower Group, IT-daily, or others’ research findings: http://www.hrgrapevine.com/content/article/2016-03-01-this-is-what-hr-will-look-like-in-2020
Our working habits, times, locations, preferences, etc. are changing heavily. Just look at BYOD initiatives which finally arrived in pretty much every company: if you do not allow a 25 year old to use his own mobile…and btw: support working from home or wherever else outside the office, you will not be able to hire (or keep) them…

Just a small excerpt from one of many HR 2020 reports (linked above): “…casual hours, flexible work arrangements and part retirement will all become normalized.
…results showing a more flexible, diverse and skilled workforce than ever before.”

Looking at other sources like Süddeutsche Zeitung, Spiegel or blogs from FAZ to Xing…it becomes clear that self-marketing will become more important than ever too…

Since the (new) crowd-based, event-driven, part-time, project-wise “gig economy” is growing significantly, it’s of massive importance to learn how to market yourself. In future, we will be working on more specialized tasks, regularly pitching against other individuals, from home (or from a café, a co-working place, or who knows from where), for just one hours or a few days, project per project…when we think we need to…

YouTubers , bloggers and other social media ninjas are doing that day in, day out already. Why? Because they like it. They present themselves. Share everything. And what they do in leisure time, they will and be able to do in business, and maybe even just expect from their job. They grow up with all of that Facebook, crowd-funding, Snapchat, bots, IoT and more fancy social internet tools and gadgets…there is (probably) no way they would change the way they are, the way they life……we all are building and changing the world together…and we do that faster than ever before…thanks to the internet, the digital transformation…and guess who changes most…the ones which post, tweet, like, …

Well, so what is that doing to our work-life-balance?

What are your thoughts on this?

Please share!

Cheers,
Sebastian Grodzietzki

Post-Holiday-Syndrome…or: I hate my job! – A survival guide…

Dear All,

I’m actually not quite sure why people are complaining about their jobs, their colleagues, or their boss over and over again, instead of changes something………my credo is: love it, change it, or leave it…

Anyways, for those of you who return from vacation and hate to get back into the office, the so-called “Post-Holiday-Syndrome” can get compensated by these measures, following to Süddeutsche Zeitung:

  • Office Gossip: yip, you’re part of a soap…we all are…and there is always someone with greater problems than yours… 😉
  • Good coffee: enjoy the taste and the caffeine boost
  • Don’t think too much about day 1, just pop-up in the office and take what comes up
  • Continue (at least a few) of the rituals you had during vacation, i.e. finish the book you started, or wear your sun glasses
  • Put your first day after vacation to a Wednesday or Thursday (or Friday 😉 …get your mails done and enjoy the weekend-break… (btw: I see so many people now doing 4-day weeks, think about it!)
  • Control your bio-rhythm -> go to bed early…and leave your bed/house totally refreshed
  • Put your favorite tasks to day 1: meet the loveliest customers, do a brainstorming to plan the next quarter, etc.
  • Bring a nice souvenir, and put it on your desk – remember, dream, …and dive into work slowly…and not too deep ;D
  • Plan your next vacation…and do not forget talk about it, and the one which just ended… 😉

Cheers,
Sebastian Grodzietzki

Event Update – don’t miss the rest of the 2016 I4.0 event season…

Hey All,

You might have read my brief IFA review…here is what comes up next, and you shouldn’t miss if you’re in innovative technologies, like the Internet Of Things, Industry 4.0 or the Digital Transformation:

29th – 30th September | code.talks 2016 | Hamburg
https://www.codetalks.de
Popcorn, Nachos und Code! It’s one of the biggest developer conferences in Europe, and covers all important trends and innovations.

29th – 30th September | CEE-Economic Forum | Velden (Austria)
https://www.forumvelden.at
Future markets – Export, Digitization, Industry 4.0
The 50 most exciting start-ups from east and southeast Europe will be there.

4th – 6th October | IT & Business 2016 | Stuttgart
http://www.messe-stuttgart.de/it-business
It’s the most important event for digitized (and digitizable) business processes and solutions, and it unifies all IT topics of companies within a single event.
-> I will be there in case you would like to meet and network a bit… 🙂

27th – 28th October | IoT Day 2016 | Stuttgart
https://www.t-systems-mms.com/unternehmen/events-termine/detail/iot-day-2016/27/10/2016/event.html
Learn how to manage the complexity of Internet Of Things (IoT) solutions.

8th November | Digital Transformation Exchange | Cologne
http://dialogum.de/wirtschaftsgipfel/digital-transformation-exchange-2016
The Digital Transformation and IoT event with CxOs from all industries.

Let me know if you have other important events to add!

Cheers,
Sebastian Grodzietzki

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION – BIGGEST ISSUE TO CIO SUCCESS: TALENT

All,

The “Digital Transformation” is here, right!?

Well, yeah…more or less: Talent has now been identified globally as the single biggest problem for CIOs to achieve their objectives. And guess where the biggest talent gaps are -> of course around information -> and not surpringsly -> this impacts big data, analytics, and information management — followed by business knowledge/acumen. And you know what?: many of these gaps are the same ones CIOs cited already four years ago!

Please check out this great 2016 Gartner report on “Building die Digital Platform”: http://www.gartner.com/imagesrv/cio/pdf/cio_agenda_insights_2016.pdf

Share your thoughts…

Cheers,
Sebastian Grodzietzki

TOP GROWTH MEASURES – JOIN MY 5-WEEKS SERIES

Hi Folks,

Over the next 5 weeks we want to discuss the following top measures to accelerate business growth:

  1. Build an innovative, scalable and low-cost demand generation model – one that is eventually recognized in the industry for delivering 2x performance of its nearest competitor.
  2. Dramatically enhance the customer acquisition process, with a concentration on improving close rates through higher quality leads.
  3. Stimulate growth within new and existing customer segments through higher brand awareness, reduced churn of existing customers, and dramatically higher levels of customer satisfaction, delight and advocacy.
  4. Develop a dashboard populated with a set of KPIs that are used to monitor, improve and report on business, growth and marketing performance.
  5. Build a world class inbound marketing team that is viewed as a value-added partner by colleagues in the Sales and Product organizations.

Looking forward to a lively discussion.

Cheers,
Sebastian Grodzietzki