Responding to Joe Katzman's request, what motivates (or retains within a
particular company) knowledge workers.
As I thought this over, what came to mind were the frustrations
experienced and how it would be great to mitigate just a few of them.
What did not jump to mind was pay. As long as I am paid a fair wage
(compared to others with my experience, degree(s) and ability to
contribute to the organization) I would not leave simply to get more
money. I thought about what would cause me to leave and have tried to
turn this into what would be positive attractors in retaining me.
1. Freedom. Includes both legitimate work time to think of new ideas,
experiment with new ideas, time for reading and reflecting and time to
communicate with other practitioners.
2. To be HEARD and acknowledged. I would expect that knowledge would be
enough of a corporate value, that the top leaders would listen and hear
the strategies and ideas that are such an important part of knowledge
work.
3. A corporate culture that values and rewards (doesn't just say it does,
but actually does) innovation and creativity.
4. A corporate culture that is consistent in what it says it expects and
how it actually works. And if it is not, (as no one culture can be
perfect all the time) that a process to reach consistency is a valued and
integral part of how that corporation works.
5. A corporate culture that believes in and actively works to encourage
skill building in all employees, even, and most importantly, at the basic
level of simple literacy.
6. A corporate culture that values accountability among its employees
both to one another, "a product" and society.
7. A corporate culture the permits, encourages, revels in doing FUN
stuff!
As I read through my ramblings, it strikes me that all of these are very
value-driven and perhaps values play an extremely important part in the
field of knowledge, particularly since it is so personal. Or is it just
me?
-- Debbie Broome e-mail: debbieb@linux.plano.gov Assistant City Manager phone: 972-461-7465 City of Plano Texas fax: 972-423-9587 P.O. Box 860358 Plano, TX 75086-0358Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>