Changing Roles of Worker Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Changing Roles of Worker - Assignment Example The article written by Lauren Keller Johnson (2006) entitled Are you getting the most from your knowledge workers? discussed relevant issues pertaining to managing knowledge workers. According to Serrat (2008), knowledge worker is unique and distinct as this type is described as â€Å"someone who is employed because of his or her knowledge of a subject matter, rather than ability to perform manual labor. They perform best when empowered to make the most of their deepest skills† (1). Davenport provided an accurate definition of knowledge workers as â€Å"those who create knowledge, such as product development engineers, or whose use of knowledge is a dominant aspect of their work, such as financial auditors. One aspect of work that has changed is that users and creators of knowledge are more likely to be the same people† (Wagner, 2002, par. 5). Serrat averred that with knowledge workers, managing entails knowledge managers and not bosses where leadership skills and styles are exercised. The changing role from boss to player/coach is hereby assessed. A player/coach role was identified by Davenport as manifesting eight key trends, to wit: (1) doing work from overseeing it; (2) organizing communities against hierarchies; (3) understanding rather than imposing work designs and methods; (4) a focus on recruiting and retaining versus hiring and firing employees; (5) building knowledge rather than manual skills; (6) evaluating invisible versus visible performance achievements; (7) building knowledge friendly culture as against totally ignoring culture; and (8) a focus on supporting rather than fending off bureaucracy (Wagner, 2002, 1 cited Davenport, 2001). Most organizations rarely acknowledge that their financial auditors, product development engineers, or customer relations professional are knowledge workers who can