What do knowledge workers want

If this can not be achieved, it is unrealistic to expect them to be successful. As busy as they are, dealing with irrelevant information can only make them less productive.

In other words, if you have data that shows that your employees tend to ignore emails due to the content irrelevancy , you should consider communicating via a different channel. With the emergence of remote work , mobile communication in the workplace became very important. Moreover, many organizations are now switching to mobile-first workplace communications. As you already know, easy access to information and other internal content is one of the most important prerequisites to ensure your knowledge workers' success.

Sometimes, knowledge workers are not only the ones that innovate, but also are the ones that communicate the latest innovations their teams have been working on to the entire organization.

As they are the ones that understand the benefits of change, it is natural that they also drive change management initiatives in the workplace.

At the end of the day, the success of your new initiatives driven by your knowledge workers will mostly depend on how well the rest of the workplace aligns with and accepts change.

Learn more about how to successfully drive change within your organization. Knowledge workers have some specific characteristics and skills that often separate them from other workers.

Below are some of the most common characteristics we can find among successful knowledge workers:. Most knowledge workers have a very specialized knowledge about a specific subject or a topic. Many of them spend years specializing in their roles and gaining new skills in a form of formal education or self-education.

Knowing how to find and access resources and important information is a crucial skill for knowledge workers to have. With the extensive information overload we all are facing, it is very important to have the ability to easily filter through it. Not everyone can make a good sense of raw data and information.

Knowledge workers, on the other hand, know how to apply the found information in a useful way. These employees must be able to analyze the information and use it to solve challenges in an innovative way. When you have knowledge workers who also know how to share their knowledge with others in the organization and collaborate in an effective way, the benefit of their knowledge multiplies.

This may seem like an obvious thing, but not many people can share information and knowledge in a way that is easily understandable to others. Because the nature of technology, business and information is constantly changing, knowledge workers must have a mindset that always strives towards innovation and growth.

They are almost always looking for new ideas about how to improve things. As improper employee communication is one of the main prerequisites to enable your knowledge workers for success, companies are now reconsidering their internal communications efforts and switching to new employee communication solutions.

With Smarp , you can reach your knowledge workers in a timely manner, personalize their news feeds based on their their roles, interests and the languages they speak. Schedule a Smarp demo today to see how it can help you set your knowledge workers up for success by streamlining your internal communications efforts.

Reach all your employees, from corporate to frontline, with targeted communications. Who Are Knowledge Workers? The Role of Knowledge Workers in the Workplace In his book, Peter Drucker noted that: "Knowledge workers would be the most valuable assets of a 21 st century organization because of their high level of productivity, different mindset and creativity.

Knowledge workers are able to learn how to read and write at postsecondary levels and to perform abstract reasoning. They also have the intellectual capacity to understand the value of acquiring and maintaining the knowledge and skills needed to accomplish their work. Some occupations have always centered on the use of specialized information. Only recently, however, have persons employed in these types of occupations begun to outnumber those employed in jobs that do not require intensive use of specialized knowledge.

In the late s and early s, writers such as Fritz Machlup and Peter Drucker first identified and described the reasons behind this phenomenon. Today the increase in knowledge work professions concerns business administrators, professors, management consultants and others interested in learning how to increase business profits or improve life's quality.

Recently, the number of persons employed in traditional types of knowledge work professions has escalated while new types of knowledge work have appeared. Throughout history, people such as writers, teachers, and ministers, for example, have engaged themselves in intellectual activity. Their numbers grew as the population of Europeans in North America increased in the s and early s. Industrialization then fostered the creation of new categories of employees who used information to make their livings: inventors, consultants, and managers.

As the population continued to grow, so did the economy, which became able to support greater numbers of knowledge workers. In the s, computer science and other knowledge based professions rapidly expanded. Economist Fritz Machlup examined the distribution, use, and creation of information in the United States. He used statistical information to show that manual workers' share of the labour force was decreasing while the white-collar share was increasing.

He tried to differentiate among various types of knowledge workers. Machlup showed that knowledge-producing occupations were growing much faster than manual labour occupations, and he redefined the word "work" in terms of a way to manage and use knowledge. Peter Drucker wrote extensively on the subject of the knowledge worker. Drucker identified and described the reasons for the decline of the blue collar worker and the rise of the knowledge worker, and he made what are now considered accurate predictions about the knowledge worker's future place in society.

He described how knowledge-based positions evolved from manufacturing and agricultural jobs as automation changed the way these jobs were accomplished. Drucker argued that service sector activities had increased, expanded, and diversified, causing the number of knowledge workers to grow. He explained how emphasis on and developments in science and technology fostered the creation of new knowledge professions while an expanding economy enabled their growth.

Information continues to influence work and alter the way it is accomplished. Technology makes possible computerized databases to manage and access such information. In turn, the introduction of new technologies creates jobs for those who design, manage, and utilize these technologies.

Organizational expansion, brought on by the use of new knowledge, also creates this type of work, as employees turn their attention toward coordinating additional work. Information's importance in the workplace continues to make crucial its accessibility. The information society requires a highly qualified workforce.

As compared to the past, a larger proportion of the population should attend college and participate in formal training programs designed to teach specialized information and specific skills associated with knowledge work. The fact that traditional blue-collar workers cannot acquire easily the knowledge and skills needed to become knowledge workers will create a shortage of these types of workers.

Although colleges and universities may adapt their curriculum's to prepare students for various types of knowledge work, it is unlikely that significantly greater percentages of the population will attend college. The American Society for Training and Development maintains that, while nine-tenths of all new jobs now require post-secondary levels of reading, writing, and math, only half of those entering the workforce for the first time have attained these skills.

When the traditional blue-collar worker cannot make the transition to knowledge work, society will face problems caused by both unemployment and understaffing. The shortage of knowledge workers makes employers concerned with attracting and retaining these employees. In order to hire and retain knowledge workers, employers may offer higher salaries, attractive work environments, and continuing educational opportunities. Employers take actions designed to attract and retain knowledge workers by creating a free-agent community, respecting knowledge workers as new bosses, and providing growth opportunities.

In a free-agent community, employees have the freedom to choose their work methods and work in the environments in which they function best. Treating knowledge workers as the new bosses means that management operates as a facilitator rather than as a controller of work. This gives knowledge workers the autonomy they need to complete their work as they see fit. Employers make work attractive and rewarding by providing growth opportunities, such as those that are associated with ongoing training and development, special assignments, and rotation of jobs and job responsibilities.

In such ways, employers attempt to address the knowledge worker shortage. Knowledge worker productivity influences success in today's competitive work economy, and businesses are focusing on increasing this productivity.

Management facilitates the knowledge worker's job performance by providing access to relevant information; environments that promote this information's desired use, continuing educational opportunities, and a balance between guidance and autonomy.

Employers use costly technologies to facilitate access to and manipulation of information. The term information technology refers to computer equipment and programs used to access, process, store, and disseminate information. Examples of information technologies include word processing, spreadsheet, and electronic mail programs, and a variety of other software programs designed to process information in specific ways.

Information technologies are designed to reduce the amount of time employees spend on information access, management and manipulation and to increase the accuracy of these processes. Information technology is important because it helps make information accessible and manageable in a time when accessibility and manipulation of information are crucial to the world economy.

The characteristics of each individual knowledge worker's workplace depend on the type of work accomplished and what the employer is willing and able to provide. Workplace arrangements range from traditional physical office space occupied by employees between the hours of A. The traditional clerk or manual labourer's workspace may remain basically the same as it was in the past, altered slightly in order to bring employees into closer contact with one another and with their customers or to permit the introduction of new equipment.

This being the physical aspects of this type of workplace center on the completion of repetitive tasks and job duties. Knowledge workers who work exclusively with ideas and information may operate in a non-traditional workplace situated anywhere that employees have access to needed computer and communication equipment.

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Blog Get the latest workplace insights and best practices. Facility Management Glossary Explore trends, terminology and technology you need to know to future-proof your workplace. News Get the scoop on company announcements and product updates. Home Smart Workplace. Create a Blueprint for Your Vision The knowledge worker thrives on information. Embrace Flexibility The driving force behind many employees leaving their current employment is lack of engagement.

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