“Liquid work refers to work or activities whose form of work is always geared towards achieving an optimal “win-win” situation for all those involved in a work process (e.g. employer/client, employee/contractor). This “win-win” situation includes in particular the factors “work-live balance” and health. “Liquid” here primarily refers to the fact that this form of work can look different or change every day and at any time in terms of time, place of work, workload, communication/communication form and non-work (classic: free time). “ Michel Wieden
Liquid Work builds on the original idea of New Work from the end of the 1970s. New Work is a utopia that was first postulated by Dr. Fritjof Bergmann. In his view, New Work is a combination of
- Self-realization
- Self-determination
- Self-sufficiency
He describes it as what “people really, really want”. In his formulation, New Work is deliberately not structured in any concrete way. There is no suggestion as to what New Work could look like because it is a deeply individual development process. In principle, New Work does not represent a specific form of work, but the form of work that the worker (at that time in the 1970s the factory worker) really, really wants. It is significant that Bergmann was/is not an economist, but a philosopher, which makes it clear why New Work focuses on the worker’s point of view with this question, and not the company’s point of view. In an event, Bergmann explains how New Work came about and what he understands by it. This original approach has been increasingly repurposed in recent years to reflect the trend towards digitalization. People and their “innermost desire for what they really, really want” are increasingly disappearing from the focus of those who proclaim New Work as the “must have” development. Liquid Work®, on the other hand, takes up exactly this original approach again.
“Bend the work around the people, not the people around the work”
Behind this is the question of every person:
What makes me tick?
In other words … what do I really want? In addition to what people actually want, Liquid Work® also takes into account parameters that describe what is healthy for people, such as chronobiological aspects (working when optimal performance is possible). For example, healthy working looks different for an early type than for a late type. Different creative times, different times for problem solving. It also includes the changing, fluid (and therefore liquid) transition between private and professional life. The classic separation of the two is no longer possible, as it is no longer feasible or sensible! A late riser only has his problem-solving phases after 5 p.m., for example, for genetic reasons. So why should he work from “9 to 5”? The employee is not primarily geared to the conditions of the company (in terms of space and time), but these conditions are geared to the individual employee in order to maintain the long-term and sustainable optimum potential. In the overall approach, the resulting changes in mobility, health prevention and social changes towards more individuality also play a major role.
This is the only way to ensure efficient and healthy working in the long term.
The core aspects of Liquid Work relate to place of work, private situation, health and mobility. The aim is to achieve such an optimized mix of these parameters that everyone involved in a work process agrees on the highest “win-win effect”.
