Why do we need New Work

Because the modern world of work is killing us. It is unnatural, inhuman, meaningless, and hopeless. We need a new one.

Work alienation and the “formatting” of people

Most people worldwide do not like their jobs. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report 2023, this affects about 77% of all workers—in Europe, even 85–87%.

The reasons are always the same: a lack of meaning, limited autonomy, a culture of control and hierarchy, burnout, and growing uncertainty in the light of automation and globalization.

This is not a new problem. Over 150 years ago, Karl Marx described a similar phenomenon as “alienation of labor”: Originally, human beings had direct contact with the results of their work—from start to finish, they would create something that was entirely the product of their ideas and actions, something that belonged to them and with which they felt an emotional connection. Industrialization and capitalism have taken this natural dimension away from work. Both the ideas and the outcomes of human action have become estranged from humans.

In the 1970s, the philosopher and professor at the University of Michigan, Frithjof Bergmann, revisited this problem of the loss of self-determination. For him, modern work was like the Chinese practice of foot-binding for women—natural development was deliberately restricted cruelly and painfully to conform women to social norms and ideals.

Similarly, today’s work often “formats” people, restricts their ability to act, and alienates them from who they truly are.

General Motors and the need for philosophy

However, Bergmann was not working in a vacuum. The direct trigger for his activities was mass layoffs in the automotive industry in Flint—a city heavily dependent on a single economic sector. In the 1970s and 1980s, technological advances and automation reduced the need for human labor, and an increasingly large portion of production was shifted to Asia, where costs were lower.

At General Motors, the number of employees dropped from around 80,000 to 50,000, which posed a real threat to social and economic stability for a city with just under 200,000 residents.

General Motors supported Bergmann’s project in Michigan, in which people facing job losses could participate in the “New Work” program for several months and, instead of working their previous jobs, could seek out and create new ones while continuing to receive their salaries.

The goal was not just retraining, but the discovery of one’s own interests, strengths, and opportunities for change, as well as their meaningful social and economic implementation.

The beginning of New Work

This project soon became the basis for the New Work concept and movement—not as a management trend, but as a philosophical response to the question: How can one live and work autonomously and meaningfully, based on mutual trust, continuous learning, personal development, and the use of one’s own skills as well as technological innovations—in a world where permanent employment is no longer guaranteed and likely never will be again?

New Work assumes that working is something natural for humans and wants to restore this natural dimension to it. Of course, it’s not about nine-to-five jobs, but about active creation, about caring for one’s own existence and that of others, as well as the quality of that existence.

The central question here is: What do you really, really want to do?—a seemingly simple yet profoundly deep question that goes beyond skills and strengths—toward worldviews and meaning.

What came of it—and why Bergmann died disappointed

The New Work movement became particularly popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many companies and organizations had to rethink their ways of working, and turned to a concept that promised modernity. 

Unfortunately, instead of a philosophical search for meaning, autonomy, and joy in one’s work, the idea of New Work was quickly reduced to a trend, fancy office designs, and employee benefits. It became a tool of employer branding—a facade behind which nothing has changed: the promise of flexible working hours, but in practice 24/7 availability; remote work, sold as freedom, but in reality just a reduction in office costs; colorful couches, ping-pong tables, yoga—and old structures that haven’t changed at all; Agility as a modern approach – and control as an old, deeply rooted culture.

Frithjof Bergmann – who died in 2021 – repeatedly expressed his disappointment in interviews during his final years about what had become of the original concept of New Work.

Work as freedom and joy of life

In the spirit of New Work, however, work, activity, and creative effort become something far greater than a duty or a source of income. They can be the greatest adventure and the greatest joy of life—a path to self-discovery, growth, and ensuring quality of life for oneself and one’s loved ones.

But to work this way, you must first truly ask yourself this central question: What do you really, really want to do? The answer requires time, and often the willingness and courage to question something you have been doing for years—something you consider normal or have been trained to consider normal.

Work can then become a natural means of creating meaning, satisfaction, and personal fulfillment. It makes you a real human being and becomes a source of joy and fulfillment.

Wouldn’t you like to work exactly like that?

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