UdZ 01.21

SPECTRUM – APPLIED RESEARCH 56 / UdZ 2-2021 stress and manage their own limited resources is it possible to maintain employment and performance into old age. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a state(s) of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity 5 ”. In scientific terms, the goal of “healthy work” is primarily to be located in the discipline of occupational science 6 . In the core definition of work science social compatibility, satisfaction and personality development, reasonableness and freedom from impairment, executability as well as harmlessness and tolerability are defined as evaluation criteria of work. With regard to the aspect of personality development, Rau 7 cautions that it is unclear exactly what about personality is to be developed and suggests using the criteria of health-friendliness and learning-friendliness instead. The author also refers to findings on a positive effect of learning opportunities at work on health. For the health of the working humans thus goals result for the avoidance of negative conditions (damage, impairments) and goals for the reaching of positive conditions (satisfaction, health). Such design measures, however, have hardly arrived in the health care industry so far or are not used very broadly. Thus, work in the Aachen region’s healthcare industry needs to be designed to better match employees’ goals, strengths, and passions, while ensuring that they remain healthy. Furthermore, new ways to improve interaction as well as the use of technologies for better working conditions are necessary steps to put the image of the industry as well as the appreciation of these services in a new light. Digital collaboration: Collaboration in and between work groups from different departments, locations or countries as deliberate activities based on the division of labor, i.e. carried out by several people, with a common goal are essential moments of everyday life in many organizations, often determining their success or failure. 8 Team- based work structures, forms of cooperation and resulting collaborative learningandworkprocesses are associated with positive effects (e.g. innovations 9 ) andarealreadyaddressed in thescientific approach of collaboration productivity as a form of productivity enhancement in companies. Specifically, collaboration productivity 10 is about the optimal support of collaboration within and between teams. In technical terms, high-resolution access to data in real time is made possible with simultaneous relief from routine tasks and information searches through a variety of digital work and information tools. In human and organizational terms, communication and collaboration between people will be of key importance. The predicted increases in productivity in the indirect areas are considerable. Nowadays, many problems, especially more complex ones, can only be solved through close and successful knowledge- based collaboration between employees. Behind this is the realization that collaboration creates synergy effects that allow demanding work tasks to be tackled effectively and managed cost-efficiently. Agility and innovation: Agility is seen as a central lever for overcoming the challenges of digital transformation and implementing innovations 12 . The need for agility is often postulated by characterizing the world as VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous). Agility generally refers to the ability to move quickly and easily, as well as to think quickly, derive conclusions, as well as translate immediately into immediate action 13 . In this sense, “agile” means the immediate action itself as well as the ability to react at any time and immediately. Accordingly, an agile person is skilled and agile, which can refer to physical, cognitive, and mental abilities alike. With the concept of organizational agility, such basic ideas are transferred to organizations or companies. Organizational agility is then understood as the ability to react both reactively and anticipatively to environmental requirements (e.g., market, customers) by means of innovative and learning- based procedures. In particular, this refers to the ability to identify changes and future opportunities in a highly turbulent corporate environment 14 . Team agility, in turn, is the ability to rapidly change team behavior inresponse tocustomeror stakeholderneeds, market or technology requirements. It is clear that the agility concept is already by definition associated with positive outcomes related to innovation, among other things. The hype that the concept of agility is currently experiencing is thus based less on an empirical foundation or statements about the extent to which the positive adaptation and innovation 5 WHO 1946/2020 6 Luczak u. Volpert 1987 7 Rau 2004, p. 182 et seq. 8 Leimeister 2014 9 Schrage 1990 10 Schuh and Potente 2014 11 s. Schuh et al. 2013 12 Worley et al. 2014 13 Puckett and Neubauer 2018 14 Felipe et al. 2016