The article first describes the different meanings given to the expression “new ways of working” in recent decades. It highlights its link to flexibility in the relationship between the employer and the workforce, with increasing emphasis on the separation from full-time, permanent employment conducted on company premises. This is followed by an introduction to the contributions included in this monograph, which offer a broad overview of the current new ways of working, paying particular attention to telework and presenting a critical view of the impact of platform work and telework.

The trend toward (new) ways of working in Spain after the Covid-19 pandemic shows a deployment of extensive organizational flexibility for dealing with any environment. The focus is on project-based organization, workers’ overall health, implementing systems to monitor performance and two pending tasks: innovation and digitalization. The article describes a study by the Spanish Association of People Management and Development (AEDIPE) during the last quarter of 2021 and the first of 2022, gathering the opinion of 527 CEOs and Human Resources managers of prominent Spanish companies. The results show eight main ideas that enable companies to develop flexibility and reorganization as a means for their stability. 1) More than 35% of workers will consolidate their partial work from home. 2) Companies are looking for performance monitoring tools that give them support for control and trust. 3) The wellbeing of employees is central in the post-Covid-19 era. 4) Innovation and digitalization continue to be pending issues. 5) There are significant differences between the coping strategies of large and small companies. 6) Workspaces tend to become collaborative and sustainable. 7) Project management displaces departmental management in organizational structures. 8) Recruitment and selection are of increasing concern to human resources professionals.

Companies increasingly tend to outsource any activities that do not form part of their core business, as well as any activities that do not enable them to generate added value, due to their lack of specialization or specific knowledge.

When making decisions in this respect, the variables that may most influence whether a service should be outsourced are the value that the activity generates for the company, the need to make management and structural costs variable, and operational flexibility.

It is essential to analyse outsourcing from all possible angles but, most importantly, we have to be objective when it comes to evaluating the pros and cons of the decision from an economic and production point of view. Moreover, the company’s general strategy must be taken into account to ensure that any outsourcing decisions are perfectly aligned to it, without any discrepancy.

Last but not least, we should take great care in terms of the kind of agreement that we reach with the companies offering logistics outsourcing services, as this will be the foundation for ensuring that we meet the financial and production objectives set.

In this article, we focus on logistics activities that may be suitable for outsourcing, the reasons for outsourcing these activities and the type of suppliers of this kind of services.

The Spanish economy is more productive but employment rates have not returned to levels prior to the recession. Therefore, the main challenge is reducing unemployment and temporary employment, creating quality, stable and productive jobs that help reduce inequality, as well as resuming the path of convergence with more advanced economies. The model of flexicurity is defined as a strategy to modernize the labour market through two paths that converge: flexibility (for both business and workers, to respond to the needs of both) and safety (for workers who must be able to develop their careers, expand their skills and receive support from social security systems during periods of inactivity). However, this model of Danish flexicurity cannot be implemented directly to each Member State or region of the European Union, but rather it must be adapted to each context with an adequate combination of instruments that respond in our region to the debate between different social and political sensitivities. The goal is not increasing precariousness through flexibility, but rather flexible specialization.