The working world is undergoing a significant process of change. Trends such as digitization and virtual workstations as well as new work processes will bring about further changes. For a long time now, software development has been shifting away from traditional hierarchical structures to agile project organization. But is the classic “Boss”, a person who distributes the work in the team and to whom you regularly report to with the results of your work, becoming a thing of the past?

Once in a while companies are being restructured, processes made more efficient, organizations redefined, and departments merged or, in a worst-case scenario, made completely redundant. Whenever management announces changes, the disastrous sword of Damocles looms over each department along with question “Who will get hit and how?”

In some countries, failure is considered part of the road to success, particularly in terms of entrepreneurship – but in Germany it’s a taboo subject. You avoid mentioning it. According to common consensus, someone who failed just didn’t think things through, was either unobservant or incompetent. This is precisely the mindset that suppresses innovation as it leaves no space for trial and error.

According to a study conducted by the German Institute for Employment Research IAB (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung), every year around 3.4 percent of employees in Germany change their job. The slim majority of 52 percent do this voluntarily, but the other half (48 percent) are forced to change their position due to (prospectively) losing their jobs.