A current reality today of the workplace and organizations is the continuous emergence of the knowledge worker and how their importance plays a critical part in the heart of an organization. Knowing how the knowledge worker came to be, and the direction these people are going into today and the future can help any manager and executive be able to create an environment suitable for success.

Before World War I, the majority of the North American population were manual workers; running farms, working textiles and working from home. The tasks in order to trade for survival were taught down from generations of families and were the “hands on” approach, as anything to trade with another needed to be something physical such as grain, or clothing. Tending to one’s own survival was a key component before the 1900’s, and was the focus of one’s life and work for the majority of the population. Henry Ford’s development of the automobile factory helped transition the population from “work at home” to working collectively at factories that required an assembly line process and group manpower. Instead of a family making one product, dozens of workers managed could create one powerful product: the automobile and other large scale items. The shift in work however was still manual work, and it was not until the 1960’s that the term “knowledge worker” was coined; a time when innovation and education would determine which companies would move ahead.

A knowledge worker can be defined as “one whose core value towards an organization lies in their knowledge, and the applications that can be used from this individualistic resource”. One cannot be taught neuro surgery or quantum mechanics and use their hands to start working on these tasks or theories; one needs to go to school to receive an advanced and specialized education and continue their education alongside their career. Being a manual worker, hands-on education and following the task requirements of the job was all that was needed. With a knowledge worker and society, the knowledge one had can become obsolete and further additions and upgrades in the knowledge worker’s skills must be attended to immediately and continuously.

Managing a corporation with knowledge workers demands that the manager effectively utilizes and motivates the individuals drive for what they love to do. One who attends rigorous schooling to become a software engineer has a love for programming and problem solving, where one who attends schooling to become a hardware designer has a passion for design and perhaps electronics. When in an enterprise, the two need each other in order to achieve a harmonious output; the software engineer cannot function without hardware and the hardware designer needs software for her device to function. Optimizing a knowledge worker’s output consists of continuous training provided by the enterprise and the emotional intelligence to drive and conjure new thoughts, techniques and ideas. The generation of a single dream or idea can then be brought down to reality and one can then begin to set in place the actions required to convert knowledge into physical application.

The knowledge workers are here to stay and are increasing rapidly with the advancements of the Internet, emotional intelligence, executive decision and technological innovation. Understanding what drives a knowledge worker and how they can effectively fit in an organization is a key step that all managers and executives of an enterprise must focus on in order to achieve and surpass their competitors in today ferocious business landscape.