System change from rules to values

Dhe pace of technological development is thought-provoking, said SAQ President Ruedi Lustenberger in his opening address. Just 250 years have passed since the first industrial revolution, and today we are already talking about the fourth under the buzzword Industry 4.0. Compared to the entire history of human evolution, these two and a half centuries represent "only the blink of an eye". Despite all the technological feasibility of systems that we are experiencing today, the primacy must nevertheless remain with humans, Ruedi Lustenberger pointed out.

How the brain "system" works
The topic of the first lecture, held by Prof. Dr. med. Joachim Bauer from the University Hospital Freiburg i. Br. was: What drives people? In his presentation, he explained basic human motivations from the perspective of neuroscience. He impressively demonstrated that appreciation and social acceptance activate the "reward centres" in the brain. On the other hand, exclusion causes pain, i.e. the same brain regions are activated as when touching a very hot object. And another characteristic of our brain: simply observing an activity activates those centers in the brain that are necessary for the specific performance of that activity. This can also be used in leadership: If you are motivated yourself, you can infect others with it - you become a model worthy of imitation, so to speak.

Forced" into the home office
Flexible forms of work are recommended for imitation in order to increase innovative capacity. This was the subject of the subsequent presentation by Marc Holitscher from Microsoft Switzerland. He noted that today's organizational models are basically from the age of Industry 2.0: There are clear decision-making paths, all employees have their function and in principle know what they have to do. But what does Organization 4.0 look like? In this respect, we need to think more in terms of "platform models", of networks in which added value is created through interaction between producers and consumers, for example. Microsoft Switzerland itself has been able to test what this should look like in practice in a large "field trial": During the renovation of the company's site in Wallisellen, all offices were closed and employees worked in their home offices or on the road. The experience was entirely positive: unproductive time decreased, as did absences. The working time model also proved attractive for single mothers. Overall, employee satisfaction increased. However, it was not without its challenges. Marc Holitscher pointed out that teamwork in particular has proved to be very demanding. The prerequisite for such a model to continue to function is, above all, trust. "There has to be a system change from rules to values," says Holitscher.

ISO 9001: more leadership required
In three workshops, distributed over parallel sessions, the conference theme "People and Systems" was further "refined". Peter Pedross (Pedco, Zurich) spoke about quality in the agile environment and posed the question of how to incorporate agile processes into small and large organizations. In particular, he presented the Scaled Agile Framework SAFe, which is in the process of establishing itself in the industry alongside Scrum. Scrum, from experience, works well in teams developing a specific product. But when it comes to complex projects involving multiple teams, Scrum reaches its limits. SAFe takes this into account and therefore scales the whole thing to levels with larger portfolios. Eva Jaisli (PB Swiss Tools, Wasen BE) focused on the influence of strategy in her presentation. An ideally formulated strategy makes it possible to summarize all behaviors in such a way that goals can be derived from them. She demonstrated this with reference to the revised ISO 9001 standard, using her own company as an example. Finally, Hubert Rizzi and René Wasmer once again pointed out the core elements of this revision. It is aimed in particular at management; management and leadership have been greatly expanded in the new version. One consequence of this is that these points will be scrutinized more closely during an audit.

What STEM professionals expect
The event concluded with a presentation on another effect of digitalization: the shortage of skilled workers, especially in STEM professions. In his presentation, Prof. Dr. Peter Kels from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts gave the visitors some tips on the criteria that companies can use to better find and retain their STEM specialists. Varied tasks, flexible working time models, attractive development opportunities in the form of new projects and through specialist careers, as well as teamwork, are decisive factors. Salary is also important, but at best as a hygiene factor and not as a motivating factor. STEM professionals, on the other hand, find their employers primarily through their personal network, job boards on the Internet, corporate websites and through university marketing. Surprisingly, social networks such as Xing or LinkedIn do not (yet) play a major role, as the speaker noted with reference to a study by his institute.

Honour and promotion
In addition to the presentations, there were two other items on the programme. Prof. Dr. Hans Dieter Seghezzi was honoured for his achievements in the development of quality management and for his many years of commitment to the establishment of the SAQ and the SQS. It is thanks to him that quality management has changed from a purely "control function" to a holistic view all the way to the EFQM model. A musical intermezzo was provided by the young singer Pascale Etter with her accompanying musicians Yannick Aebischer (guitar) and Ghislain Ruprecht (percussion). The SAQ thus continued a tradition of supporting young professionals - this time musicians.