How the knowledge economy will change the way we work

April 3rd, 2010 by Katri Saarikivi

Around the world today, the demand for knowledge intensive work is increasing. This shift is producing a fundamental change in the basic architecture and rules of working life. Knowledge intensive work poses specific challenges for knowledge workers and the companies that employ them. In order for companies and their employees to develop and innovate, new knowledge supportive structures and a change in the way we think about work are both required.

In global business it is more of a rule than an exception that work is done outside predefined work hours. The importance of the physical workplace has diminished, as it is rare that knowledge intensive work requires either specific tools only found at the workplace, or ongoing face-to-face interaction with colleagues. A new way of working is being born and is already visible in all the improved communication and collaboration solutions that reduce the need to tie work to a specific place and time. Working is in a sense liberated and problems in this situation can mostly come from trying to keep traditional 9 to 5 structures alive alongside the increasing cognitive demands of information intensive work.

The power of knowhow
Knowledge intensive work highlights the need for high-level knowhow, creativity and continuous learning. This produces a change in how work is defined – as work places, roles and work hours cease to define work, what are left over are tasks, end results and customer needs. The knowledge, values, personal characteristics and life choices of employees will become highlighted. It is irrelevant what work roles or titles are involved in doing the work – if the company’s success relies with providing innovation and problem solving, the best available knowhow has to be matched with tasks that are defined to respond to specific customer needs.

Finding experts with specific knowhow is important as well as how companies are able to support the development of this expertise. Knowhow is a resource that has huge development potential but also natural limits dictated by the characteristics of the mind. In order to develop this important corporate asset companies will have to apply knowledge about how the mind works and become human centered in their thinking. Companies that manage to support knowledge intensive work with structures that increase learning and creativity will be able to develop beyond their competition.

Increased competition between companies over knowhow will change the employee’s relationship with work in a radical way. Working in a company and applying personal knowhow will become an investment in a company. Work will be the creation of short-term cooperative relationships between employees and companies instead of long and static employment contracts that tie a complex human resource to a predefined role. Companies will be expected to regard employees as they now regard financial investors. Important new functions in companies or other types of employers will include fostering growth of employees’ knowhow and directing it towards tasks that further company goals. On the other hand, as employees with specific knowledge and experience will be sought after, they will have freedom of choice regarding what kinds of tasks to take on and will not engage in activity that does not feel personally meaningful. This will lead businesses to discard functions that are deemed useless in the eyes of employees which in turn automatically brings a human aspect into all that companies do.

Cognitive challenges for the employees
Instead of diplomas of education or job titles, specific knowledge and former activity with tasks will best describe a person’s ability to add value for employers. In order for employees to succeed, one of the most important challenges will be their awareness of their own knowledge and the ability to communicate it to others. Reliable and accurate self assessment of knowhow is however a very difficult cognitive endeavor. Personal characteristics such as knowhow and experience are closely related to a person’s concept of self – and very hard to put into words.

Information intensive work is for the most part acting within hypermedia contexts, which complicates the cognitive demand of information processing. It is no longer enough to be able to handle simple information contents or process stages. Knowledge intensive work requires employees to plan, direct and assess their own actions and thinking. It also requires the capacity to continuously find new ways to solve problem as well as the ability to create immediate trust and function flexibly in fast-acting teams and within different forms of collaboration.

Because of all the specific cognitive aspects of knowledge intensive work, the development of the employee’s metacognitive skills is essential for successful work. In modern, over-managed organizations a lot of metacognitive activity that should rightly be a part of the employee’s thinking (and would as such be extremely beneficial for the individual) is defined as the responsibility of management. As the employer-employee relationship continues to change, it will suddenly become the responsibility of the employee to create lasting motivation, personal meaning and wellbeing in work. To retain their value, knowledge workers will also need to continuously develop their knowhow and learning as well as manage their time and personal resources to achieve both own goals and the company’s.

Where to from here?
Companies that use knowledge intensive work in their business and have realized the importance of their human assets can improve their success in two ways. They should embrace the new conception of task-based work that is independent of time and space and make use of the knowledge available on efficient learning and human information processing. This will release the content of work to find the best knowhow and cater to the specific cognitive requirements of knowledge intensive work.

Employees’ cognitive processes and self-awareness can easily be developed by using psychological methodology which makes vague concepts such as personality and knowhow more tangible. When a commeasurable language is made available for communication about personal characteristics and knowhow, employees can be compared and the best fit between people and tasks can be reliably determined. Adding structures that increase metacognitive awareness and metacognitive skills into work supports learning, which is a prerequisite for adding value in knowledge intensive work. Increasing metacognitive skills and awareness also helps the employee choose the tasks and work environments that best suit him, evaluate and develop his own work and function flexibly in environments with complex knowledge structures.

This writing is based on discussions between the author, Lilli Sundvik, Esko Kilpi and the gentlemen at Microtask over the emerging changes in working life and its implications on the individual and corporate level.

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