HR Management Information & Reference

The great challenge of the 21st century

In the previous issue raised was the importance of the challenge of improving the productivity of knowledge worker. It also defined what was a knowledge worker as well as their characteristics. In this issue we analyse its responsibilities to the employee to improve their productivity and leave for the next corresponding to the company.

Responsibilities of the knowledge worker

Being a knowledge worker implies self, that is, concentrate on the task, time management, take responsibility for their own development and growth and for the results generated.

The definition of the task is a key issue. There is evidence that the mere fact of answering this question, lets increase productivity.

What is the task? What is the task?

Answering the question about what the task requires the employee to define what is the unique contribution that he or she can then decide on the task at hand.

Ask, for example, what is the task of a nurse. Suppose that the answer is caring for patients. It means that change the water the flowers that bring visitors, answering telephone calls from relatives of patients, fill roles, tasks are not where nurses can make its unique contribution, are tasks that could be made by another employee, not the qualifications required of a nurse, and charged that a salary less than a nurse.

The possibility of being able to reflect on this and other employees to transfer these tasks that do not require the expertise of a nurse, significantly increases the productivity of the same measure by the time the nurse spends next to the bed of the patient.

Since then the response, the knowledge worker, should determine what is important and not important, what is urgent and what is not urgent and set priorities. The latter is the crux of the self.

Matrix self

Let matrix self to a 2×2 matrix where’ll work according to their importance and urgency.

It is important to emphasize here that the important tasks / non-urgent matters that are, in general tend to put off, precisely because they are not urgent, but are those that build production capacity in its broadest sense.

A teacher may make many kinds unstudied, but will come a time when, if you do not (not urgent and important task), their skills are outdated. A person who suffers from pain may postpone the visit to the doctor, but perhaps when made, it is too late. In other words, do not urgent and important tasks is what will allow us to continue making all other work and be more effective.

Efficiency, effectiveness and efficiency

Define these concepts as follows:

Productivity of the knowledge worker and parent of self-management. Once you have answered the question about what the contribution and therefore what task, the next step is to design the worker self-management of its parent, where you’ll find different tasks.

Based on previous definitions we can say that we can be efficient (doing things right even those that are not important) in any of the four quadrants … but will only be effective (the important thing to do) in quadrants I and II, namely those in which the activities, urgent or not, are important …

Then, a knowledge worker, will only be effective when focus its attention on the quadrants I and II but devoting more time to quadrant II (important / non-emergency) that when I, because it is precisely through activities carried out quadrant II, which reduced the tasks of quadrant I and the time spent on them.

Summing

A knowledge worker is effective when it achieves a balance between what is urgent and not urgent always working on what is important. In order to concentrate on the important thing is the key delegate. When the knowledge worker is effectively makes the most unique and valuable contribution, namely increasing their productivity.

However, for this contribution can materialize the organization has an important role to play. This role will be the occasion of the third and final note in this series.

Tags: Knowledge Worker

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