Strategies for Managing Knowledge Workers

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The Information Age

The social transformation that has occurred has us living and working in what many regard as the final quarter of the age of information in which the knowledge worker is often referred to as the “gold collar” due to their high salaries. Knowledge workers are able to leverage their information in the workplace and in society in careers that have them “thinking for a living.” Their primary task is to garner information that leads to expert knowledge on particular subjects or areas, e.g. to be subject matter experts. Knowledge workers do non-routine tasks of problem-solving that require a combination of creative, diverging and converging thinking.

Knowledge workers manipulate language, symbols, and information to create an original knowledge product or to add an obvious value to an existing one. They are paid well for their creativity and innovation. Their ever-present muse is to compare and contrast to identify where there is convergence and divergence in order to find the gaps and plug in their solutions whether these manifest as new products or services, processes, methodologies, models, etc. This is a skill that is often taught in higher education with greater degrees of mastery in certain areas of study. Knowledge workers at the top of their games are set apart by continually looking for ways to increase their skill-set in becoming masterful innovators with the ability to create at will; their quest is endless.

Diverging perceptions and thinking allow for the ability to see what is not typically obvious; to find where things splinter off and create new pathways, while converging thinking allows synthesis of information, the bringing together of abstract ideas to form new knowledge or better practices, etc. Current working generations must be taught and trained by their social institutions to be knowledge workers in preparation for the next social transformation of the biotech age, which is well underway.

There is plenty of disagreement as to the definition of knowledge workers as its meaning has changed and morphed over the last 50+ years since being coined by Peter Drucker. Thomas Davenport, a scholar and author on the topic of knowledge work, in his book “Thinking for a Living,” shares a definition: “knowledge workers have high degrees of expertise, education, or experience, and the primary purpose of their jobs involves the creation, distribution or application of knowledge.” For the purposes of this article, we will continue under the premise of this definition.

Managing Knowledge Workers

It is estimated that 28% to 45% of the U.S. workforce is currently made up of knowledge workers. There are interesting perspectives on how best, if at all, to manage these employees. One employer perspective is that these are bright people with information and thus they must know what to do to fulfill their roles. However, other employers, scholars and HR best practice practitioners would beg to differ, believing that all employees should be managed to some degree to achieve optimal results in their roles. Who is right? Is there a right or wrong answer? Is it industry or sector dependent, or as nuanced as company-specific?

Management of Time and Tasks

Knowledge workers are often said to be time wasters; however, there is evidence that these workers are burdened with internal communications that do not add significant value to their work or the work of others. The time management of knowledge workers has to take on a very different prism than one might use to view and measure the productivity of others working in the mechanized roles of a Taylor-esque environment. The creative process does not adhere to being timed and segmented the way assembly-line workers’ or data entry clerks’ workflow processes can be measured. There is an inherent problem with management models not fitting the context of those they are managing and the work of the knowledge workers. Hence, we have a conundrum that is not so much about whether to manage the knowledge worker, but a question of how.

Focusing on the segmented and individual productivity of individual knowledge workers does not accurately measure their output, as many of their gifts are contributed in intangible and sometimes invisible, but “felt” ways that are not easily measured using traditional best practice models. The goal is to get more out of every single contributor to the organization. The “more” that the knowledge worker supplies as “creative sauces” and “strategy mix” is a recipe designed to aid and improve end-to-end business processes. Therefore the focus should be on the ways in which individuals collaborate and contribute as a collective. Yes, individual performance must occur for the collective to thrive; however, the management and measurement might be better viewed as contributions to a dashboard or scorecard that everyone supports. A new design is needed that clears the non-essential, non-value-added busy-work out of the way and off of the plate of the knowledge worker. It is not the best use of their time to return endless emails and attend meetings that are not essential to their role(s).