Ergonomics and the focus on human resources are widely accepted solutions to improve the performance of enterprises. Especially the influence of demographic change raises the relevance of such approaches. In the past years, different approaches were developed to realize those scientific solutions more efficiently. But which of those scientific approaches offers the optimal solution for enterprises in a turbulent market? To answer this question, this paper shows a state of the art review of different approaches of work systems. The main goal is to clarify the differences between the approaches and illustrate the academic void.