At the end of August Aon Hewitt organised the first World of Work related hackathon of Hungary at the premises of Microsoft Hungary with the sponsorship of a few multinational companies. There was huge interest in the competition with teams working on ideas and concepts around the question of “What will the work environment look like in 3 to 5 years?”. The competition was intense, some people stayed overnight, others returned after a short sleep at home to continue working. During the breaks intense networking took place and numerous new connections were made too.

The names of the teams were informative, suggesting the idea they were working on. To give you a feeling here are the eight ideas from the final runners up of the competition:

• iMotives: a blockchain type motivation concept
• KnowHouse: the concept of the self learning city
• Centaurs: a software concept to sensitize Humánsoft to work together with robots
• PurposeLab: developing purpose-based self organising resource pools
• AtomicWorks: automated resource allocation based on skill profiling
• RobotHR: gamification of skill management
• Digital Psychoprofiles: engagement management based on digital human thermometer
• Mozaik: Service-like flexible and efficient employment system development

The presentations were also well prepared although the lack of sleep after 24 hours of work was slightly present.

My personal preference was the idea of Mozaik. Imagine for a moment that there is no Labour Code because its not needed and everybody gets a skill-based, joyful work in a flexible and effective employment environment.

But the biggest learning of the hackathon for me was not necessarily the ideas presented at the event. The overall message conveyed by the participating HR professionals was that they don’t feel good in their employment. Many don’t like their job, the purpose they work for, or they don’t feel that they have the opportunity to grow…and I could continue. Most want to work as a freelancer at a company where they do meaningful work with a flexible schedule.

I hope that the prominent HR leaders present in the jury will take that overall picture to their company management and to the various professional forums so that the issue of employee motivation and engagement can significantly be improved.