Maximizing the Impact of Knowledge Workers: Practical Strategies

In the realm of knowledge work, specialists with honed expertise play a crucial role in driving innovation and problem-solving. Yet, unlocking the full potential of knowledge workers requires strategic alignment with organizational goals and the cultivation of collaborative, communicative environments. For knowledge workers to contribute effectively, alignment with your organization's strategic business goals is paramount. Ensure these goals are clear, achievable, and communicated transparently across the company.

• Eliminate Silos - Combat the pitfalls of siloed information by fostering a culture of knowledge-sharing. Implement learning management systems (LMSs) that facilitate effortless sharing of expertise among knowledge workers.
• Encourage Collaboration - Break down silos not just for knowledge sharing but also for cross-departmental collaboration. Reevaluate your organizational structure to promote an open, honest, and trusting culture that empowers knowledge workers to collaborate effectively.
• Promote Innovation with New Ideas - While knowledge workers are catalysts for innovation, inclusive collaboration ensures that diverse perspectives contribute to shaping and implementing new ideas. Transparency in projects invites expertise from all corners of your organization.
• What’s Happening in Your Industry? Help knowledge workers stay abreast of industry trends without succumbing to information overload. Implement solutions that automatically curate and deliver relevant information from reliable sources, ensuring easy accessibility.
• Embrace the Internet - The rise of remote work necessitates embracing mobile-first solutions. Enable your knowledge workers with easy access to information and instant communication through mobile-friendly platforms, recognizing the increasing trend of remote and hybrid work environments. Digital communication is the lifeblood of knowledge work. Equip teams with tools like Slack or Workbench “Always on the Job!” to foster seamless communication, breaking down barriers and promoting collaboration across departments.
• Stay in Perspective - Knowledge workers are not just innovators but also drivers of change. Embrace organizational change by keeping an open mind, supporting change management initiatives, and effectively communicating the benefits throughout the organization.

In the dynamic landscape of what we do in the knowledge-based economy, strategic alignment, effective communication, and a collaborative culture are essential for maximizing the impact of knowledge workers. 

Can We Move Past a Materialistic, Consumption-Driven Economy?

One important question that arises, during this difficult time, is, can we move past a materialistic, consumption-driven economy?

Most present economic models result in rising inequality, impacting income, wealth, education, health, and social perceptions.

"... [a] materialistic social contract rests on philosopher and economist Adam Smith’s principle of the invisible hand, whereby people pursuing their own self-interest in free markets are led—as if by an invisible hand—to make everyone in society as well off as possible. The popular appeal of capitalist economies relies heavily on this principle, since people usually support capitalism because it is alleged to deliver higher living standards and more economic freedom than alternative economic systems."

The underlying assumption is that human needs can be satisfied through material prosperity and that decentralized, self-interested market decisions tend to generate such material prosperity more efficiently than more centralized, coordinated approaches. Too often, assessments of capitalism aim to focus on so-called "triumph" over socialism. Be real -- there is no such thing as a pure capitalist system. Humans embrace many different forms of capitalist economies; since money was invented about 5,000 years ago, people understand that trading improves both parties' position.

The current institutional capitalism and corporatism represents one of many different versions. And, around the globe, there are many iterations of capitalism right now. Singapore, for example, is the fourth richest country in the world in terms of per-capita GDP with an unemployment rate of 2.2 percent or lower since 2009. Who doesn't regard this city-state as one of the most free and open, pro-business economies in the world? Yet the government in Singapore routinely guides investment policy, and government-linked firms dominate telecommunications, media, and finance. Such intertwining would be unthinkable in America, Norway, Japan, or Canada. Like Singapore, many countries’ form of capitalism is steered not by that unseen hand — but by defined policy.

Human-centered capitalism: Utilizing market forces (capitalism) to benefit society, measured in gross national well-being instead of domestic product (human-centered)

What activities add up what might be considered a "normal life," one that is well-rounded? Could our model for consumption and interaction be more accommodating to a lifestyle where care of each other, of personal character development, can be fostered? We all benefit from lifestyles influencing community in a positive way, infused with personal creativity and work-life balance.Economics enables us to explore why people sometimes make irrational decisions, and why and how their behavior does not follow the predictions of so-called experts. Humans are emotional, oft times making decisions that are not in their self-interest. We should aspire to get away from viewing capitalism as some cold, numbers-only thing or a zero sum game that pits business profits against government taxes or capitalist bosses vs socialist workers.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/toward-human-centered-capitalism/

A Huge Multi-National That Only Utilizes Remote Workers

There are obvious benefits to remote workers. Staff are more productive. It improves morale. It enhances talent recruitment and retention. And remote work offers cost savings. But how can a large organization manage?

Take page from GitLab, which has an all-remote policy. While officially based in San Francisco, the company has 850 employees across more than 55 countries, all of whom work from home. Company culture, of course, can be difficult to maintain when everyone is remote. GitLab workers stay connected through daily team calls and watercooler chats on Zoom and Slack, where employees often gab about non-work activities. "Visiting grants" help cover costs when staffers travel to regions where other employees are located.

Remote work can ease the carbon footprint of companies. It can also boost productivity and lower operating costs. But how to deal with the obstacles to effective dispersed teams? GitLab offers a few model processes.

For example, organizations should address how to ensure workers are,w ell, working. One of GitLab's core values: Measure results, not hours. "We can't measure how long you work," he says. "We don't want to measure it. We don't want your manager to even talk about it with you unless they think you work too much," says GitLab CEO Sijbrandij.

One area to address is to coordinate and communicate effectively across time zones GitLab does this by documenting everything. In addition to the publicly viewable merge requests, meetings and presentations get uploaded to YouTube. When employees have questions, they're encouraged to search the company's comprehensive (1,000 printed pages) online handbook.

Read more here ...

Remote Workers are not just more happy, but more productive

Companies that let their employees "work from anywhere and work whenever they want," end up with employees who are more loyal, more productive, and lower overhead expenses.

In a recent study, Harvard associate professor Prithwiraj Choudhury and his colleagues compared how productive, loyal, and cost-effective employees at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office were when they were allowed to work flexibly.

A government office was selected because it had recently implemented a wide-scale pilot program to facilitate a number of patent examiners to work remotely when they wanted, while still requiring others to remain in the office.

The results showed a 4.4 percent higher productivity among those in the pilot program, while doing the exact same work as those who were required be in the office.


Read more at:  https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/how-companies-benefit-when-employees-work-remotely

Dislocation of the Workforce Known for Decades

Knowledge workers can work wherever is needed, as the communication infrastructure and information management systems support the workforce. Working from home (wherever that might be) is not limited to only when the weather kills your commute. With today’s internet, ever-evolving collaboration tools, and forward-thinking leaders, remote work is becoming the norm.

See this interview with the head of Intel, from 1981.

Productivity is enhanced. From a 2014 study, in which the travel website CTrip enabled a subset of  workers to work remotely on a regular basis, they then compared productivity to office-bound counterparts. With all other factors being equal, the remote workers ended up making 13.5 percent more calls than their comparable office workers. According to a 2016 survey of American remote workers, about 91 percent of people who work from home feel that they’re more productive than when they’re in an office.

Working remotely can make a worker more productive; according to studies, as long as the job is one that can be performed in such an environment, most people are more productive. Of course, raw productivity isn’t the only benefit. Having employees work from home can save businesses thousands of dollars per month (per employee) depending on office expenses, and could also raise employee morale, improving retention and collaboration. On top of that, remote workers take fewer sick days and less vacation time, giving them more work days overall.

Create Diverse Workplaces Using Artificial Intelligence Ethically

Companies should be aware of and recognize that artificial intelligence algorithms are created by humans with biases and beliefs -- and make every effort to eliminate those biases.

A.I. takes input data and races off to make inference and decision making about the world at lightening pace,” --Dipayan Ghosh, a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School

Read more...

Take the Middle Man Out of More Transactions

Uber and AirBnB are in the vanguard of the P2P marketplace model -- their gradual but ultimately huge success of is opening up breakout growth, heralding an explosion in startups with similar models: Taskrabbit, Fivver and others. Marketplace startups are unique because they aren’t just serving one base of customers. These enterprises connect buyers and sellers, service providers and consumers. Their models work when they ensure users are having a good experience with each other, as well as with the respective companies.

Can you tell I am a big fan of P2P exchange-based marketplaces? Companies like AirBnB and Uber have their detractors — some very legitimate: there are some serious issues around discrimination, harassment and worse that these companies have to continue to address. But they also continue to battle against unfair regulations. Laws need to catch up to this new model, not hinder growth and progress.

Obviously, there is growing interest in services like ride-sharing and short-term rentals, where demand is not easily met by traditional means due to capital investment constraints. These new enterprises are simply too big and popular to be pressured to shut down. Nor should they — each new generation reveals in a new world order with new economic realities. Robot cars (and more disruptive, robot trucks) are *ahem* around the corner. Even money (in the form of crypto-currencies, traditionally controlled by governments, is throwing off the shackles of authoritarian overreach.

The Team that... Cooks together... Performs Better

Over at FastCompany, we read...

"Fun has to be part of the business when you market a lifestyle brand... What began as an informal gathering took on a more bare-knuckles edge last year after the company secured a new $7 million round of funding led by Partech Ventures in April 2015. Now two teams of on-site employees face off quarterly in what Hunter describes as an "ironless" chef cook-off using only tools found around the office..."

"Each team has roughly an hour to plan their meals and take a trip to the grocery store to find what they need, though some will forage for fresh produce right where they are," says Button cofounder Stephen Milbank. Teams get 30 seconds to pitch their finished concepts. They usually need every last one as constraints often lead to interesting or even crazy choices, like the team that used waffles instead of buns for a recent burger-and-salad cook-off.

Read more productivity tips at FC...

Cities are the source of civilization -- perhaps time to supersede nation-states?

Forward looking individuals are inviting the world’s mayors to collaborate on solving some of humanity’s most vexing problems – Benjamin Barber, Don Tapscott and Richard Florida – who believe that our times and circumstances require nothing less than a global parliament of mayors. This would be a voluntary network of elected municipal officials and others, managed by collaboration and consensus, to advocate for more effective urban policy. Cities, after all, are the birthplace of civilization, and hubs of innovation.

The Global Parliament of Mayors is an unprecedented new experiment in democratic global governance platform by, for, and of cities. Mayors from cities large and small, North and South, developed and emerging, will convene in September 2016 to identify and pursue in common the public goods of citizens around the world

Tapscott is best known for a series of successful business books touting the benefits of collaboration technology, chief among them the 2006 Wikinomics, while Florida is known for his theory of the “creative class”; and Barber has significant experience thinking through the dynamics of democratic governance.

At the Guardian:

We do in fact live in a post-Keynesian epoch – an era in which, for reasons both fiscal and nakedly ideological, most states have retreated from the provision of citizen services they used to undertake as a matter of course. Margaret Thatcher’s sweeping logic of privatisation has had such impact that even egalitarian Finns are now worried about losing their national health service.

Municipal administrators, by contrast – beset by rising waters, crumbling infrastructure and vulnerable populations – are forced to be practical, empirical, and far more immediately accessible to their restive and squabbling constituencies. They don’t enjoy the luxury of ideological posturing. Anyone interested in pragmatic, sleeves-up responses to the various crises that afflict us might therefore be well-advised to look to them for insight.

See this site for more about the Parliament of Mayors

Using Process Improvement to Delivery Relief - from Toyota to NYC

Kaizen is all about process improvement. Toyota brought their knowledge of supply chain management to relief efforts in New York City after Hurricane Sandy. The benefits of Toyota Production System in nonprofits is clear: smooth operations, lowered cost, faster turn-around. Non-profit organizations are experiencing increasing client demand, making operational improvements critical to growth and success. Particularly in the food bank arena, issues of timely deliveries to partner agencies mirror warehousing and logistic issues in other industries, making the Toyota Production System (TPS) philosophy and lean principles applicable to this setting.

Watch the video here...

Lest We Forget - We Have Walked on the Moon

On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon -- go Team America! The scope of NASA's Apollo program seems staggering today. President Kennedy announced his moon goal just four years into the Space Age, but the United States had not even launched a human into orbit yet. Amazingly, just eight years later...

Twenty-four U.S. astronauts have traveled to the Moon. Three have made the trip twice, and twelve have walked on its surface. Apollo 8 was a lunar-orbit-only mission, Apollo 10 included undocking and Descent Orbit Insertion (DOI), followed by LM staging to CSM redocking, while Apollo 13, originally scheduled as a landing, ended up as a lunar fly-by. Apollo 7 and Apollo 9 never left Earth orbit. The inherent dangers of manned Moon expeditions as seen with Apollo 13 -- and of course the disaster of Apollo 1, the first manned mission of the U.S. The planned low Earth orbital test of the Apollo Command/Service Module never made its target launch date of February 21, 1967 because a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test on January 27 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 killed all three crew members—Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Edward H. White II and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee—and destroyed the Command Module.

Could Flight be Man's Greatest Achievement?

While the Wright Brothers were first out the gate successfully, to complete man's eternal quest to achieve a powered flight, in 100 years we have come very far. The short flight in 1901 changed air travel in the twentieth century and remains one of human kind's great technical achievements. Of course, this culminated in one giant step, and a smaller one.

This is a cool article, about the language of the skies...

Aviation has a lot of special language, like sailing or gymnastics. Its brief, even curt efficiency and orderly templates keep planes on course and out of each other’s way.... But there is one special set of aviation jargon, more alien than the concocted vocabulary of Esperanto and more bizarre than patterned wordplay of Pig Latin or Id. This is the lexicon of waypoints, which are the road markers in the sky for directing planes on a course.

In the 20th century, airplanes and mass-­produced cars have changed the way we live. Cars, affordable for masses, have allowed us to move around, and planes make faraway destinations close. People still struggle towards a century-old dream -- the merging of cars and planes into flying cars. But, as readers know, self-driving cars are, in my opinion, much closer at hand, and a better option. I love flying, but I'll settle for a robot chauffeur.

The Author's WIsh for Self-Driving Cars -- further down the road?

Carmakers have so far introduced autonomous technology carefully, aware that having too little to worry about behind the wheel can be just as dangerous as having too many distractions. Too slowly for this committed car junkie. After all, what could be more futuristic than jumping into your hovercar, pulling the door downward to close it, keying in your destination, and dozing for two hours until you arrive at the seaside? Well, a jetpack. But, failing personal flight, autonomous driving would finally bring the future to now.

But this MIT article throws cold water on the dream of autodrive mode.

From this article: 'Vehicle automation is being developed at a blistering pace, and it should make driving safer, more fuel-efficient, and less tiring. But despite such progress and the attention surrounding Google's "self-driving" cars, full autonomy remains a distant destination. A truly autonomous car, one capable of dealing with any real-world situation, would require much smarter artificial intelligence than Google or anyone else has developed. The problem is that until the moment our cars can completely take over, we will need automotive technologies to strike a tricky balance: they will have to extend our abilities without doing too much for the driver.'

Automation and Work - and Freelancers

Automation was once considered the bane of the laborer. We have seen, however, how factory automation has not fully replaced humans. For example, China's "outsourced" manufacturing (and Mexico's) has led to more products, more cheaply available. And a marginally better standard of living in that country.

But automation is still a challenge. As this article discusses,

In the early nineteenth century, David Ricardo considered the possibility that machines would replace labor; Karl Marx followed him. Around the same time, the Luddites smashed the textile machinery that they saw as taking their jobs.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThen the fear of machines died away. New jobs – at higher wages, in easier conditions, and for more people – were soon created and readily found.

In the growing knowledge worker sector, automation can help -- collaboration across time zones is more practical. Engaging teams with better productivity can result in more work, done more effectively. Results of collaborative efforts are often of higher quality, and delivered more quickly. Collaborative knowledge worker automation allows geographically dispersed teams in an extended enterprise work smarter, faster, and more effectively together.

Robert Skidelsky's conclusion is worth considering:

If one machine can cut necessary human labor by half, why make half of the workforce redundant, rather than employing the same number for half the time? Why not take advantage of automation to reduce the average working week from 40 hours to 30, and then to 20, and then to ten, with each diminishing block of labor time counting as a full time job? This would be possible if the gains from automation were not mostly seized by the rich and powerful, but were distributed fairly instead... Rather than try to repel the advance of the machine, which is all that the Luddites could imagine, we should prepare for a future of more leisure, which automation makes possible. But, to do that, we first need a revolution in social thinking.

Telework - the future. And more productive

(Tom paraphrasing/citing here...)

Many firms are uncertain about what policies on home working to adopt. As a result, firms in very similar industries adopt extremely different practices. For example, in the U.S. airline industry Jet Blue allows all regular call-center employees to work from home.

The trade-off between home-life and work-life has also received increasing attention as the number of households in the US with all parents working has increased from 25% in 1968 to 48% by 2008 (Council of Economic Advisors, 2010). These rising work pressures are leading governments in the US and Europe to investigate ways to promote work-life balance. For example, the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) published a report launched by Michelle and Barak Obama at the White House in summer 2010 on policies to improve work-life balance. One of the key conclusions in the executive summary concerned the need for research to identify the trade-offs in work-life balance policies, stating:

“A factor hindering a deeper understanding of the benefits and costs of flexibility is a lack of data on the prevalence of workplace flexibility and arrangements, and more research is needed on the mechanisms through which flexibility influences workers’ job satisfaction and firms’ profits to help policy makers and managers alike” (CEA, 2010)

First, the performance of the home workers went up dramatically, increasing by 12.2% over the nine month experiment. This improvement came mainly from an 8.9% increase in the number of minutes they worked during their shifts (the time they were logged in taking calls). This was due to a reduction in breaks and sick-days taken by the home workers. The remaining 3.3% improvement was because home workers were more productive per minute worked, apparently due to the quieter working conditions at home.

Second, there were no spillovers on to the rest of the group – interestingly, those remaining in the office had no change in performance.

Third, attrition fell sharply among the home workers, dropping by almost 50% versus the control group. Home workers also reported substantially higher work satisfaction and attitudinal survey outcomes.

Finally, at the end of the experiment the firm was so impressed by the impact of home-working they decided to roll the option out to the entire firm, allowing the treatment and control groups to re-choose their working arrangements. Almost one half of the treatment group changed their minds and returned to the office, while two thirds of the control group (who initially had requested to work from home) decided to stay in the office. This highlights how the impact of these types of management practices are also ex ante unclear to employees.

Read the full report here...


- Posted by Tom/Bluedog

The 21st Century Employee Model - distributed workforce

Dan Pink chronicled the growing ranks of people who work for themselves in his 2001 book, Free Agent Nation. Many people may have started their own shops to become a part of the freelancer nation, even larger organizations can use freelance workers or others in alternative employment arrangements to help meet some of staffing needs.

In the multimedia/video/film world, experts come together to create, write, shoot, edit and distribute products. Such ad hoc teams form the basis of knowledge work that is creative, and profit-focused.

Such ad hoc project may involve work that requires less than a full complement of staff to complete and has immediate benefits. The work may involve frequent discussions between client (requester) and the team. One of the difficulties of having unaffiliated exerts work in groups on a project (software development, a video, a research paper, etc.) is that there are always a few who do not get fully involved in the project. This is an easy trap to fall into. Usually, one or two of the team members know much more about the topic, tools, or subject matter, and so end up putting the majority of the project, document, proposal, or whatever, together. Others are more adept at creativity, spreadsheets, running the software tools, etc., so these people end up doing a few specific tasks. Problems arise when one or two do all of the work. The rest of the group, with a lack of activities to keep them busy, often end up left out, underutilized, and even put off. Shortly, the stakeholders get frustrated with disorganization and the 80/20 rule kicks in: one or two people do the lion's share. For most, this lessens the benefit of such ad hoc cooperatives.

This can be easily avoided.

Staring out with a strong plan, and getting participant buy-in upfront makes the way forward clear. Providing an easy-to-understand project plan (perhaps with a GANTT or other visualization) and schedule keeps everyone focused on the goals. Assigning and tracking tasks, with everyones' input, results in measurable progress. If you have chosen your team members well, self-motivation will be evident.

It is not uncommon for many of us work regularly with colleagues based in different buildings, cities, countries, and even continents. Members of the work group may be in different time zones, speak different languages, and be of different cultures. Providing feedback and encouraging communication -- in real time or off-line via comments, discussion forums, email or even texting -- promotes bonding and ensures team members know they are valued.

Interfaces - command line, desktop, gestures, voice

Apple's iPhone 4s is about, well, the guts of the platform -- a significant upgrade to iOS in the form of message handling, cloud integration, and Siri, the AI-based voice recognition.

Moving from command lines (which required memorization) to the desktop metaphor (icons work well with humans' ability to 'recognize'), we've now got a gesture-based interface. Apple's introduction of Siri means, perhaps, that voice control will move to the forefront of interface interaction.

Read John's viewpoint, over at AllThingsD