Online Programme
Designing New Work – HR as driver of innovation and change
Become an expert on current trends towards new ways of organising work.
- Experience live and first-hand how New Work methods have driven the digital transformation from a traditional hierarchical print company to a new online media giant., Johannes Burr, Head of Collaboration, Learning & Transformation at Axel Springer SE, will share this story with the participants Step-by-step. As Head of Change Management, he has been intensively involved in the transformation process. For the certified Scrum Master, the focus of his work is not only on employee empowerment and accompanying change processes, but also on the implementation of agile working methods.
- Take the next step to New Work in your company. Learn how to benefit from current trends such as agility and new technologies including big data and process digitalisation in HR to enhance the competitiveness of your organisation.
- Exchange about the experiences and lessons learned gained during the crisis and beyond.
- Receive individualised feedback and coaching on your HR business case.
This specific HR-programme provides you with a safe and agile learning space. Together with the other participants you will form a club of New Work experts.
You enter into a community of peers who want to shape the working environment of their organization. You enhance your network and benefit from advice from your peers - during and beyond the programme. In constant exchange and reflection with the other participants you will benefit from the insights of your trainers:
- Organising work in a digital way: The use of new technologie.
- How well do you lead your virtual teams?
- Becoming a more resilient leader: Managing anxiety and even panic and your personal stress factors.
- What are best practices of New Ways of Working? Which practices can you adopt to increase the competitiveness of your organisation?
- HR as supporter of the process toward digitalisation and New Ways of Working.
Benefits for
participants
1
You will have a safe space with your colleagues with whom you will form a club of New Work experts.
2
You will have clarity what New Work means and how you use it to leverage the impact of HR.
3
You will reflect on your professional situation: Where is my company and work culture located?
4
You will learn how to organise work and building teams with Gen X, Y, Z.
Benefits for
employers
- You will return to your organisation with a concrete New Work toolbox.
- Your company has to be increasingly agile in the face of rapid change. With this training, you will learn how to master this.
- Corporate strategies are more and more created in an agile (i.e. incremental) way. You will learn how to handle them and how to communicate this to your organisation.
- You will discover how an agile mindset in HR helps you to drive the success of your company.
Faculty & Partners

Marion Festing
Marion is professor of Human Resource Management and Intercultural Leadership. She founded the ESCP Europe’s Talent Management Institute and the Excellence Centre for Intercultural Management, which both link academic and practitioner communities by creating new knowledge and building platforms for networking and exchange. She teaches courses on (international) human resource management, leadership and intercultural management, and has developed digital course elements such as a serious game for intercultural management.
LinkedIn
Lynn Schäfer
Lynn holds a PhD and heads the Talent Management Institute at ESCP Europe, Berlin campus. Her research interests include human resource management and talent management; additionally she is working as consultant, trainer and coach at subject:RESOUL. Before her academic career, Lynn has worked as a Senior Recruiter for McKinsey & Company and in Management Development and Recruiting for Bertelsmann in Germany and China.
LinkedIn
Markus Albers
Markus is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Rethink as well as Co-Founder of Neuwork. Markus was author at Brand Eins, Berlin-Correspondent for Monocle, Managing Editor at Vanity Fair, Editor at Welt am Sonntag and SZ-Magazin. His texts have also been published in Die Zeit, GQ, AD, Spiegel, and Stern. His books “Meconomy”, “Rethinking Luxury”, “Morgen komm ich später rein”, and “Digitale Erschöpfung” have been well-reviewed and translated into five languages.
LinkedIn
Johannes Burr
The fully qualified lawyer with an EMBA in Media Management is Head of Collaboration, Learning & Transformation at Axel Springer SE. As Head of Change Management, he has been intensively involved in the transformation process from a former traditional media company to a leading digital publishing house. For the certified Scrum Master, the focus of his work is not only on employee empowerment and accompanying change processes, but also on the implementation of agile working methods. The change management initiative “move”, which was initiated by his department, received the European Change Communications Award and the HR Excellence Award.
LinkedIn13 April 2021
09:00 - 09:05
Welcome by ESCP
09:05 - 12:00
Business Trends and their implication for HR
Marion Festing
Lynn Schäfer
Participants will acquire skills and familiarise themselves with strategies to attract, develop and retain experts, digital talents and the generation Z in the war for talents.
- Create awareness of challenges/topics, involve participants in discussions, let them reflect their own perspective and get an outside view on own problems. Share own experiences, get inspired by best practices and state-of-the-art insights
- Major challenges in HR, megatrends (demography, digitalisation, globalisation) and their impact on HRM/New Work
13:00 - 16:00
Understanding and designing New Work
Marion Festing
Lynn Schäfer
Participants become part of the ESCP and TMI community (expertise, networking events, exchange of ideas and sharing of knowledge, recruiting opportunities etc.).
- New Work concepts, principles, best practice examples, outcomes & effects and generational aspects (generations at work, different perspectives, expectations)
20 April 2021
09:00 - 11:00
Speech and discussion
With New Work Methods: Digital Transformation at Axel Springer Media
Johannes Burr
Participants receive exclusive insights about the process of digital transformation at Europe's largest media house.
- Step by step: How HR at Axel Springer Media has implemented new ways of working
- How New Work acts as a driver for Digital Transformation
- Best practice: Participants learn firsthand how to set up a successful process to introduce New Wok methods
11:15 - 13:00
Best Agile Methods used by Axel Springer Media
Johannes Burr
Participants will learn methods and tools to cope with the high speed at which projects often have to be managed.
- Teamwork with Scrumboards
- Building of cross-functional teams
- Putting teams together again and again in a new (and appropriate!) way
- At the end of the session: Preparation groupwork exercise: Culture Hacks
14:00 - 16:00
Speech and discussion
New Work & Digital Exhaustion, Resilience
Markus Albers
Develop a holistic view on the impact of New Work implementation.
Foster resilience, increase retention and motivation.
- Awareness: Participants will be able to put New Work’s three dimensions in context: Bricks, Bytes, Behaviour.
- Critical Perspective: Participants will learn about downsides and dangers of New Work schemes.
- Solutions: Participants will learn about best practices to avoid downsides and avert dangers. In the subsequent discussion they will apply this knowledge to develop hands-on solutions for their own organisations.
27 April 2021
09:00 - 12:00
Agile Organisations and New Work
Marion Festing
Lynn Schäfer
Leverage the positive effects of agility - an agile approach in HR can have a great impact on your whole organisation.
- Agile organisations, VUCA, transformation of organisations, agile values and principles, workforce agility, ambidexterity – how participants can foster agility in their HR department/organisation
- Line-ups on different topics (coaching method), group work challenges of agile organisations
13:00 - 16:00
New ways of attracting and developing talents
Marion Festing
Lynn Schäfer
Participants work on company specific projects and can attend online sessions after the program to maximise the learning impact.
- Trends and best practices in talent attraction, active sourcing, talent relationship management, global recruiting, future selection
- Self-assessment employer branding & social media
- Trends in talent management (diversity & inclusion, agility and dynamic TM, self-nominations)
4 May2021
09:00 - 11:00
New ways of developing talents
Marion Festing
Lynn Schäfer
Participants have the chance to exchange about the experiences and lessons learned gained during the crisis and beyond and get individual feedback from New Work experts.
- Trends in talent management (diversity & inclusion, agility and dynamic TM, self-nominations)
- Learning & performance feedbacks
11:15 - 13:00
Data/People Analytics
Marion Festing
Lynn Schäfer
Participants will learn how people analytics can help you to tackle your challenges and become a more competitive organisation.
- What is People Analytics?
- How can People Analytics be applied (cases)?
- Which data is used for People Analytics?
14:00 - 16:00
Online Coaching
Johannes Burr
Deep understanding of agile methods
Feedback to groupwork/Culture Hacks
18 May2021
09:00 - 12:00
Feedback and wrap up session
Presentation of groupworks
Q&A with all teachers
Marion Festing - Lynn Schäfer - Markus Albers - Johannes Burr
It all starts in HR: The Human Resource Department as driver for new ways of working.
Participants can develop their own roadmap to implement New Work
Audience:
Heads of Human Resources departments, HR Business Partners, HR Managers and Talent Management Managers as well as other HR and organisational development professionals of medium sized and large companies.
Fees - €2,950
Publications
Learn more about the work of faculty & partners:
- Harsch, K., Festing, M.: Dynamic Talent Management Capabilities and Organizational Agility—A Qualitative Exploration, Accepted for publication in: Human Resource Management (2019).
- Dowling, P. J., Festing, M., & Engle, A. D.: International human resource management (7th ed.), in: Cengage Learning (2017).
- Festing, M. Kornau, A., Schäfer, L.: Think talent – think male? A comparative case study analysis of gender inclusion in talent management practices in the German media industry, in: The International Journal of Human Resource Management (2015).