An interesting article in CIO magazine about Peter Drucker – who first coined the term ‘knowledge worker’.  It’s not a soft piece. In The comeback Charlatan David James is critical writing;

He talks about knowledge as the organisation’s vital “resource”. It is not a resource (resources are inanimate; knowledge is an act of animate humans).

Likewise, his use of the economics-derived term “productivity” is doubtful. It is not how much knowledge is “produced” but how well it is applied.

In an interview with BRW, Drucker dismissed these concerns, saying that “eventually, we will have to work out the proper methodology for both defining and measuring knowledge, work and the knowledge worker”.

The comeback Charlatan

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Things might not look too hot at the moment, but pretty soon knowledge worker skills are going to be in demand again and the employers who showed a dark side during the recession will struggle to fill vacancies.

Despite the recession, New Zealand still has a severe shortage of building industry skills and there are pockets of the IT business where vacancies have remained since the global economic meltdown began.

Australia is already showing signs a severe shortage of IT skills could hamper companies and government departments as early as next year. For example in Demand for ICT professionals on the rise, bottom is in Stan Beer at iTNews reports; “The bottom in ICT employment has been reached and demand for skilled jobs is once again on the rise, according to the latest market survey from a major technology recruiter. The news adds to a growing list of evidence of a return to health of the ICT jobs scene.”

A week earlier ITNews covered a report from Australia’s largest recruiter Peoplebank saying the demand for contractors was rising. A similar story appeared in CIO magazine in June with Seek Employment noting the overall job market was stabilising with IT consultants in high demand.

Australia’s ITNews reprinted a story from Britain’s Computing newspaper on July 7 saying the antipodean nation is busily recruiting IT specialist in the UK to meet a shortage.

On a related note, The Australian reported on a skills shortage in research organisations in Upgrade ignores skills shortage. And the New Zealand Herald reports there are many shortages in engineering.

The New Zealand edition of CIO magazine carried a report which suggests the majority of employers in the IT sector still face a skills shortage despite the recession. Despite downturn, opportunities remain for APAC IT candidates suggests one in four tech employers expect to increase their headcount this year. The story singles out specific skills in business analysis, datawarehousing, ERP (Oracle/SAP), web development and infrastructure (architecture) as being of particular interest.”

Some shortsightedness is in evidence in IT training budgets slashed at ITNews which suggests employers have slashed skills spending and can expect to see a serious skills vacuum by 2112.

What does this mean?

First, it’s a safe bet the skills shortage will return to Australia in the next year or so and to New Zealand soon after – the two countries are effectively a single market for knowledge workers. If anything it could be worse than before for a couple of reasons. Many skilled workers will have drifted off into other occupations or even early retirement. At the same time employers have cut back on training during the recession. While there are increased numbers of people taking tertiary courses in technology and similar subjects, many won’t enter the workforce in time for the recovery and they’ll have knowledge, but little experience, which means only a handful will hit the ground running.

Employers who behaved cut back staff, skimped on training or held on to skilled workers and pushed them too hard during the recession will all suffer once the skills shortage kicks in again. Knowledge workers will be able to drive better bargains – and recent experience will teach people to look beyond the pay packet.

Writing in this BusinessWeek opinion column Marshall Goldsmith says:

Knowledge workers can be defined as people who know more about what they are doing than their managers do.

I accept this is true and interesting, but it’s not much of a definition.

Update: Here’s a piece I wrote to explain the term – Who are the knowledge workers?

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Is Auckland a jobs oasis for IT specialists?

Well that’s what specialist recruitment firm Potentia says in an upbeat report on jobs with Auckland’s technology companies.

The company surveyed 453 organisations and found the jobs market is still expanding. Highlights include:

• A third of companies plan to expand. Only 10 percent are focused on survival.
• Half of the companies expect to hire more staff, with contractors accounting for nearly half of those new positions.
• Salaries are not likely to rise.

So, not much dosh, precious little security, but plenty of work for those who want it. In global terms that makes Auckland a beacon of employment hope. (And it’s a good place to live too).

The report is essential reading for all New Zealand technology professionals and describes a possible escape route for worried Australians knowledge workers.

As an aside, Potentia could do with some professional communications help. The report is poorly written. It is too long and has far too many complex, jargon-packed sentences. This makes for dreary reading. The company’s sales pitch inserted near the start comes across as crass. This is a shame as, with better presentation, this could be a first class piece of marketing communications that speaks for itself.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

Peter Drucker

Many regard Drucker as the father of modern management. Here we remember him as the man who came up with the term; “knowledge worker”.

I love two things about this quote. First, its inherent confidence. Second, it inspires me to get off my backside and create things.

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Next time you drive through the CBD late at night, notice how many offices are brightly lit. You’ll probably notice a lot are.

• A handful might be businesses like call centres, newspapers or IT operations that routinely work night shifts.
• In some cases the offices might be being cleaned.
• Other may be empty. Some companies like to light their offices at night as a gesture of solidarity with global warming deniers. Way to go boys.

Yet even from a moving car you maybe able to spot CBD offices housing a surprisingly large number of people are still working.

The last time I drove through my local city I noticed exactly that and this was at around midnight. I know from experience that the situation is similar in cities around the world.

People are working longer hours

Of course, long hours are not unusual for knowledge workers. They are particularly common among younger people in their late teens and early twenties. But it happens right across all age ranges.

Surveys show that the average working week for a full time employee in New Zealand is now around 44 hours. Twenty percent of employees regularly work more than 50 hours a week.

New Zealand isn’t different from other countries.

Given that a sizeable section of the workforce still works shifts or fixed hours and that there are still many clock-watchers who race out of the door at 5.00pm or 5.30pm this means that for committed workers the average working week is considerably longer.

At a guess I’d say readers of this column are more likely to average 48 hours a week.

But that’s only an average. Some will work more than that.

Work marathons are not a problem

I’m certain we’ve all pulled the occasional marathon work session or two. Over short periods these are not a problem.

However, over the long term, if excessive work hours are not strictly controlled they can lead to serious health issues and other major problems in the workplace. Not to mention grave conflicts with those increasingly rare parts of our lives that happen away from work.

Things aren’t as bad today as they were at the height of the dotcom frenzy, but there are still plenty of people who habitually work 12 to 16 hour days. And for people in cities like Sydney or London they often have to commute long distances before and after work.

Most people who work long hours do so because of real work pressures – for example you may be struggling to meet deadlines. This should be occasional rather than the norm. Frequent long hours are usually a sign that something is badly wrong at your workplace. Aprat from anything else, it’s quiet possible your employer is not playing fair with staffing levels. And that means you are being exploited.

Twisted workplace culture

We’ve all seen companies that demand or extract long hours because of a twisted culture. I’ve certainly worked in places where there has been some complicated game of chicken going on, with employees competing to show management who is the most loyal and dedicated worker by staying in the office later and later.

Of course these employers might argue that there’s a severe skills shortage so existing workers need to do more. There’s an element of truth. But on the other hand, abusing something rare and precious is a perverse way to run a business.

No doubt some employees feel pressure to work long hours in order to save their jobs in a recession. And yes, there are employers only too willing to exploit this fear.

The knowledge worker credo says that you simply don’t have to put up with that kind of nonsense. Even in a global recession. In the good times there’s always another employer who needs your skills. So if you are pressured to regularly work excessive hours – and in my opinion excessive hours is more than 50 hours a week sustained over a long period – then you have every reason to walk. Even in the bad times you can often find a better deal.

Now I have to be careful writing about this kind of issue. The last time I touched on something similar I received large amounts of angry and abusive email from readers who think looking after oneself is strictly for sissies. So we’ll all doff our caps in reverence to the sheer manliness of the hardened macho types and remind ourselves of two truths about long hours.

• First, sustained long hours are not healthy. Period. If you continue to work around the clock you will damage your body. You almost certainly won’t be getting enough exercise. There’s a good chance you won’t be eating properly. And you probably won’t be giving yourself enough downtime.
• Second, there’s a lot of scientific evidence that long working hours are simply not productive.

We’ll look closer at both these issues another time. For now, ask yourself if all the hours you work are necessary. Even if the only pressures are self-imposed, you might want to evaluate your relationship with your employer in terms of the hours you spend working.

This is rocket science Image via Wikipedia

Customer services team leader Justin Flitter discovered managing knowledge workers isn’t rocket science. In his role he gets to spend 80 percent of his day working directly with the people who report to him.

That’s not always the right percentage – but he’s on top of the most important point here, to manage knowledge workers you need to lead from the front rather than hide away behind a desk – or worse, in a remote office.

If you’re not spending the largest slice of your time, meeting, coaching and and working alongside the people who report to you then you’re not a leader. That’s not rocket science.

Priorities of a Team Leader | Justinflitter.com.

Alaina Love’s Cutting mature workers widens the wisdom deficit for Businessweek magazine echoes earlier Knowledge Workers stories. She writes; “Companies that cut seasoned employees without considering the wisdom and knowledge lost are making an expensive, if not disastrous, mistake.”

Love is right on the money. There’s a temptation to cut older workers because they generally cost more to employ than younger workers. However, that higher price is what companies have been willing to pay in order to buy access to the contents of the older worker’s head.

via Cutting Mature Workers Widens the Wisdom Deficit – BusinessWeek.

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