Dealing with Crises in New Work Companies

How do New Work companies deal with crisis situations? With solidarity, decentralization, and distributed decision-making. Even during the coronavirus pandemic, we can act quickly and flexibly and learn a lot that will still be useful after the crisis.

What exactly is New Work?

Admittedly, New Work is a rather vague term that's been floating around the internet a lot these days. Generally, it describes a way of working that focuses on independence, freedom, and participation. What this means for us in concrete terms : We are a purpose-driven company that belongs to its own employees. We use a form of holacracy —meaning we don't have managers or bosses telling us what to do; instead, we work in a self-organized manner. Decisions are made together using integrative methods. Through non-violent communication , we learn to address tensions directly and grow from them.

Our friends at einhorn not only produce fair and sustainable condoms and period products , but also, like us, operate as a purpose-driven company with holacracy and non-violent communication. Elena Weidemann from einhorn, who promotes the einhorn.period account and political petitions, and Patrick Boadu, Leadlink of the Communications, Marketing, and Sales team and Managing Director of soulbottles, discussed this. Here's the summary of the Instagram Live video:

The Corona moment

At some point, it arrived: the coronavirus moment. The point at which it became clear: Things are getting serious . For einhorn, that was the beginning of March, when the workshop for people with disabilities , which normally packs and ships parcels for retailers, ceased operations for safety reasons.

For soulbottles, there were two such moments: In January, the Chinese manufacturer of our stainless steel drinking bottles halted production at short notice, forcing us to adjust our annual planning . The second moment came in early March in Berlin, just days before the government officially announced measures. To protect society and fulfill our responsibility as a company , we have been working from home as much as possible since March 13th.

First Aid: Rapid crisis management

As a social business, we take responsibility beyond our own economic interests . To continue to act fairly toward people, the environment, and employees, we quickly took the following measures:

• Social distancing through home office: Employees work from home to minimize infection risks.
• Corona Task Force: A multidisciplinary group takes over analysis and decision-making in real time.
• Securing the supply chain: Close contact with partners has helped us maintain operations.
• Providing empathy: With formats such as video meetings, we create space for uncertainty and exchange.

Has New Work helped us?

Yes. Our way of working has proven helpful. Values ​​such as self-management, decentralization , and solidarity make crisis management easier for us. They were fostered through self-ownership, holacracy, and non-violent communication and are particularly effective now.

What do we want to keep after the crisis?

We would like to preserve some positive developments from this time, including:

• Communicate even more openly: Address tensions more quickly, even after the crisis.
• Closer contacts: Intensify friendly relationships with partners.
• Email instead of meeting: More efficient communication through written votes.
• Productive meetings: Clear structures for more focus and results.

In this sense: Together we will find solutions to fears and worries.