Knowledge Workers and Their Working Field and Circumstances Essay Example
The term knowledge worker was first used by Peter Drucker in his book Landmarks of Tomorrow from 1959. His opinion is right that knowledge workers have positions in the technology field, researching, system analysts, technical writers, academical professionals and so forth.
The concrete definition of a knowledge worker is described in Thomas Davenports Book Thinking for a living (2005) as someone who uses his mind for work. Knowledge workers do primary solve “non-routine” difficulties and not daily tasks. They possess knowledge and are able to carry out combining convergent, divergent and creative thinking (Reinhardt et al., 2005).
As knowledge workers need time to search for their information – according Mcdermott (2005) they spend about 38% of their time searching for information – knowledge workers can not be treated as other
...workers. They do not receive all necessary information from their management in order to fulfill their tasks. They are analysing and working with their creativity in order to develop strategies, new products or other outputs. They often work out of their head office, they are displaced by their managements or they work in a home office (2005). They are considered by Cooper (2006) as people who “think for a living” and they are working in positions often related to the information technology and they include doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, financial analysts and architects.
In our times, the percentual number of the knowledge workers in most of the working fields is increasing. Due to the information technology, the number expands dramatically.
So what is the challenge for a company to have a suiting organisational arrangement for knowledge workers? There are
circumstances which assist and others stop the creativity and performance of knowledge workers:
Assiting circumstances: -free time table -possibility of learning and teaching during work hours -self-management -continuing innovation -clear description of tasks -focus not on productivity -treated from company as intellect – as an asset and not as a cost -crowd sourcing possibilites and mind mapping -team work and building
These circumstances rather stop the performance of a knowledge worker: -many routine-tasks -limitation of freedom of expression and opinion -always same work hours -predetermined work steps -a management that can not accept the power of knowledge -interpersonal difficulties
In my work field the tourism and the online marketing, we are clearly depending on knowledge workers. It is not always easy to hire the right staff as mostly the routing tasks are neglected. If we organise a wedding reception for a client as wedding planner on a small Greek island for example, all the team is very active to find the best venue, decoration, to propose the best menu, etc. But no one is thinking of the weekly bookkeeping or the daily office tasks like administration or cleaning. That is also a reason, why we outresourced the bookkeeping and why we have our cleaning staff.
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