Explain the growing presence of knowledge workers in today’s workforce and how these employees differ from traditional workers. Describe the specific issues managers must address when employing knowledge workers.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Knowledge workers and how well these employees are managed is seen as a major factor in determining which firms will be successful in the future.These workers differ from traditional workers who were valued for what they did or their years of experience. Knowledge workers tend to work in high-technology firms and are usually experts in some abstract knowledge base. They often believe they have the right to work in an autonomous fashion, and they identify more strongly with their profession than with any organization-even to the extent of defining performance primarily in terms recognized by other members of their profession.As the importance of information-driven jobs grows, the need for knowledge workers will grow as well.These employees require extensive and highly specialized training, and not everyone is willing to make the human capital investments necessary to move into these jobs. In fact, even after knowledge workers are on the job, retraining and training updates are critical so that their skills do not become obsolete. It has been suggested, for example, that the "half-life" for a technical education in engineering is about three years. Further, the failure to update the required skills will not only result in the organization's losing competitive advantage but will also increase the likelihood that the knowledge worker will go to another firm that is more committed to updating those skills. Compensation and related policies for knowledge workers must also be specially tailored.