In a very extended half hour interview with Henny van Egmond (in English) I talk with him about the new world of work at Rabobank, the only triple A bank in the world. Henny runned a project Rabo unplugged there and now that this is going well, he decided to start his own company and advice other large companies on changing the way they work.

The most important things I got out of the interview:

- The new world of work is all about trust. We’re moving from a century of distrust (and measurement) to a century of trust. And this needs to be adapted in the workplace as well.

- The new world of work is about finding happiness in your work. And you can only be happy when you use y our talent and are connected with the meaning of your work. It’s important to show the meaning of the work to the person doing the work.

- The fact that the new world of work isn’t for everybody isn’t per definition true. Of course not every job can be done independent of time and place. But if you look at the number of transactions in the physical world the Rabobank does, that has dropped over the past decade from 300.000.000 tot 3.000.000. Because of this, much of the work has become time and place independend.

- Another thing you see is that clients demend flexibility in time and workplace. Most morgatge talks are done in the evening at home these days. You cannot ask a morgatge seller to work from 9 to 5 as well then.

- Clear corporate values are very important. If you give people freedom and responsibility, they need to know the borders. A clear vision, clear values and clear boundries are very important if you introduce the new world of work.

- Technology must be platform independent. Employees will choose the devices they want to work with, a Mac, iPhone, HP or Andoid based system should all be able to plug into your technology platform.

- Punishment for not meeting targets isn’t the necesarry. If implemented right, the trust is high and the social connections are high, dialouge should be able to solve problems that appear.

- Many performance measurement systemens don’t really work and will be done with over time if the new world of work is succesfully implemented. Because these systems say: if you reach A, that’s fine. B you get a bonus, if you get to K you’re the best and get a huge bonus. But if I only need A, why should someone be rewarded more for B. Do what you agree upon and reward accordingly.

Stem of voeg toe aan: