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If you want to improve your company's balance sheet in the future, you have to focus on humanity. This means that managers need new skills. The challenges are huge.

Increasing complexity, acceleration, an ageing society, diversity, more networking and flexibility: social change affects management in particular. Applicants are already asking for flexible working hours in job interviews, and employees are demanding more decision-making freedom and a say from their managers.

However, according to German trend and futurologist Sven Gàbor Janszky, one group of employees in particular will be responsible for the decisive change in work culture: people with fixed-term contracts who change employers frequently and quickly. According to Janszky, they will make up 40 percent of the corporate world in 2025. These employees are not familiar with a 40-hour week, time clocks or regulated vacation periods. They are used to working independently and have no problem turning down a job if it simply doesn't interest them. Janszky's prediction is in line with the results of the latest StepStone Trend Study 2016, which was conducted among around 17,000 specialists and managers in Germany. 80 percent of respondents stated that they would turn down a suitable position if they could not identify with the company.
 

"We must not miss the boat!"

Companies must therefore adapt their management culture to social change if they want to continue to attract the best and brightest minds: less hierarchical with understanding bosses who have mastered the art of motivation. In short: leadership must become more human. This is why managers should already be focusing on their employees. Actually. Because the gap between what employees want from their managers and the reality is still wide.

The results of a study commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Labor, for which 400 managers were surveyed in in-depth interviews, show just how wide the gap is. The majority of managers criticize the top-down management style and consider it to be long outdated. One in three managers is even convinced that the "me boss, you employee!" attitude is "a decisive disadvantage in the struggle to retain and attract talent". The situation is comparable to a "train approaching: The risk of missing the connection is continuously increasing." It is becoming particularly important for managers to work "in agile management structures" and be able to react flexibly to the needs of their employees.
 

Responding flexibly to challenges: 5 leadership trends

But how do you achieve the transformation from a hierarchical company to an employer where humanity and profitability go hand in hand? What paths must managers take so that they can continue to successfully attract employees and inspire them for their cause in the future?

Get in the boat

Identification with the company more important than ever

Sabine Diefenbach is also convinced that the principle of command and control is a relic of the past. She is a management consultant and founder of the company generation guide, which has been advising and supporting companies on work-life balance issues for many years. "In future, managers will have to be able to lead very much on the relationship level. However, this does not simply mean 'having a good relationship' - in other words, getting along well. The quality of the relationship will be characterized by openness and honesty. They must be able to get their employees on board and inspire them with the company's goals. This means that employees must be more involved in product development than before." So while it used to be about formulating clear instructions and sales targets, in future it will be primarily about intrinsically motivating employees and getting them excited about the cause - for example, by formulating goals and the way to achieve them together with their teams.

  Please go!

Train your employees and fire them!

This may sound somewhat absurd at first. However, according to trend researcher Janzsky, this new type of management policy ensures that companies can attract the best employees even in a lean labor market. Sabine Diefenbach is also convinced that in future it will no longer be a question of retaining employees for as long as possible in the traditional sense. "A new task for managers will be to support their employees in their professional development and pave the way for a job change within or outside the company as soon as they can better apply their skills elsewhere," explains the management consultant. Such a step increases the employee's trust in their employer immensely. And after all, word of good leadership gets around in professional networks. This means that vacancies can be filled more quickly thanks to positive word-of-mouth advertising. However, this also means that managers will have to focus even more on building a good professional network in the future.

  Do what you want!

Use the lateral competencies of your team members

Another task for managers will be to specifically introduce employees to areas they are not familiar with in order to utilize their lateral competencies. According to Jansky, this has a major impact on motivation and creativity in the job. Google has already impressively demonstrated that this principle - letting employees do what they want to do - works. Every fifth day, i.e. one day a week, Google engineers and programmers were allowed to work on a project of their choice. Google admitted that most of the projects came to nothing. However, this model project resulted in successful services such as Google Maps, Gmail and AdSense, which still generate billions for the company today.

  How are you doing today?

It's no longer possible without a work-life balance

In the past, a job had to be one thing above all else: well paid. Today, young professionals are willing to sacrifice salary if it means they have more free time. Money and career are far behind a healthy work-life balance in the value system of young professionals. For managers, this means that they have to support their employees in all phases of their lives - and not only make it easier for them to return to work after parental leave, for example, but also to manage the subsequent balancing act between nursery, caring for relatives and the job.

  Stay a little longer!

Don't just let your older employees go

The times when older employees could be replaced almost effortlessly by qualified new recruits are over - in view of demographic change. Janszky outlines a simple and frightening forecast for German management. He estimates that around 6.5 million people will disappear from the German labor market in the next ten years, leaving between 2.0 million and 5.2 million unfilled positions. The solution to this pressing problem is obvious: "In order to mitigate the shortage of skilled workers, companies should definitely make use of the potential of older employees and bring them into line with the next generation," says Diefenbach. "To do this, it is important to encourage young managers in particular to adopt an age-appropriate management approach before they take on such a role."

Managers want personal coaching

The demands placed on managers are immense. Up-to-date specialist knowledge, professional networks and a personal standing are essential prerequisites for meeting the requirements. Not an easy task. And so the 400 managers surveyed in the above-mentioned study by the Ministry of Labor also came to the conclusion that they need the opportunity to reflect in order to create a new management culture. For this reason, many of the managers value personal coaching and the opportunity to exchange ideas with one another. Whether in the context of leadership workshops, training sessions or moderated discussions: the joint discourse on the corporate culture is becoming an indispensable tool for the success of a paradigm shift in day-to-day management.
 

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