What is NewWork?

NewWork is a grassroots community of UN employees who are innovating, collaborating, and adopting new ways of working. We aim to change our workplace culture and cultivate an agile, people-focused UN 2.0. We do this by amplifying transformative initiatives and bridging silos through dialogue and creativity.

NewWork was created to help ensure the UN can better respond to humanity’s most pressing challenges while maintaining the well-being, morale, and engagement of our employees. #NewWork aims to build a community of individuals who are committed to embedding continuous improvement, agility, and innovation through innovative workshops, community engagement, and networking opportunities. It is an employee-led, global empowered network. It consists of champions and volunteers from across the UN. The network (internal link*) is coordinated by a global group of volunteers and supported by champions applying an agile mindset and principles.

Now is the time for NewWork

It's about upscaling skills and promoting behaviours and values that will shape an organizational culture that promotes agility, integration, and cohesion. Not only within the Secretariat, but across the UN family. I think what's most important is that UN 2.0 is not about UN 2.0 for its own sake, it's about equipping the organization and the UN system to be better able to deliver to the people we serve, and also supporting member states. This will require leadership and innovation."

- Catherine Pollard, Under-Secretary-General for Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance, Common Agenda consultation 5: "Enhancing international cooperation"

The Secretary-General's Common Agenda and vision for “United Nations 2.0” articulates the drive and impetus for organizational flexibility, agility, and transformation. The ability to deliver, to proactively respond to and even prevent future crises, depends on a fundamental rethinking of the UN’s organizational culture. Culture change is necessary to connect and align the behaviours and mindsets of personnel globally.

With this goal to shift our workplace culture and cultivate an agile, people-focused UN 2.0, NewWork aims to amplify transformative initiatives led by its members and offers opportunities to exchange good practices and scale. NewWork aligns to the Values and Behaviours Framework, as well as Our Common Agenda and the vision for UN 2.0. Taking a non-siloed, collaborative approach to organizational culture change.