Knowledge workers how many

We then asked them to list between six and 10 discrete activities during that day, such as a meeting, a phone call, or a period of time responding to emails. In the survey we gathered data on specific activities undertaken by 45 knowledge workers. In the survey, which was conducted in May and early June, we gathered data on activities from 40 individuals. The age, sector, and experience of the respondents varied.

We broke down activities done into six categories: desk-based work alone , externally facing work interacting with anyone outside the company , managing down interacting with subordinates , managing across interacting with peers and colleagues , managing up interacting with the boss or someone else senior , and training and development.

Externally focused work e. How has this picture changed during lockdown? Desk-based work continues to take a third of our time. Other changes — a little less time managing up and a little more time on training and development — were not statistically significant. Standing back, the evidence suggests lockdown has helped us more effectively prioritize our work. We still need to get through our emails and report-writing.

But we are significantly less likely to get drawn into large meetings, and this leaves us more time for client or customer work and for training and development, which most people would argue is a good thing. While most knowledge workers have a written job description somewhere, it is well understood that they take responsibility for choosing what to do and when to do it based on a variety of factors, including tasks outside of their formal role when it appears sensible to do so.

Both these differences were statistically significant. It seems we have been taking more direct charge of our time during lockdown. The result is a reassuring increase in us making time for work that matters most to us. These people are generally well-educated workers who are leaving their jobs not because the pandemic created obstacles to their employment but, at least in part, because it nudged them to rethink the role of work in their lives altogether.

Many are embracing career downsizing, voluntarily reducing their work hours to emphasize other aspects of life. As someone who writes often about this sector of the economy, I began to collect stories from workers who had downshifted. An information-science professor named Ana shut down a long-standing research group at her university and left multiple projects and committees, where ambiguous focus and meandering communication were draining her energy.

These downsizing knowledge workers represent only one piece of the Great Resignation, and their choices certainly earn disclaimers about privilege, but they seem worth monitoring, because they represent a group that wields outsized economic and cultural influence.

It took several days before the connection snapped into place. Many years earlier, when I was a graduate student at M. I for sure never looked at ice the same way again. The nature writing still shone, but the book was also, in some parts, drier and more quantitative than I had remembered.

He wanted to establish a hard accounting of how much money was required, at a minimum, to achieve reasonable shelter, warmth, and food. This was the cost of survival. Work beyond this point was voluntary.

These farmers were motivated, he noted, by the emerging consumer economy that was being driven by the industrial revolution. We have to ensure that laws encouraging and protecting knowledge work are as strong as those that have developed for other skilled industries. And we have to ensure that knowledge is recognized and put to good use. In the future — in our lifetimes — we will find the answer to the question: What can one billion knowledge workers accomplish?

Expert Guidance. Connect with Peers. Blog home. I hope the answer is a good one. Consequently, cognitive performance should be paramount to the organizations engaged in knowledge work. Imagine the power and productivity of a business that has all its knowledge workers firing on all cylinders. Today we know they are not. Based on our research undertaken in partnership with The Center for Evidence Based Management in Amsterdam, there are some 13 factors that influence the performance of the individual brain and six factors that impact upon the effectiveness of the collective brain.

From a lifestyle standpoint, we know that hydration, exercise, sleep, breakfast and diet play a major part in making sure knowledge workers are on their A-game when they come in through the door each day. But we also know that only small percentage of knowledge workers ensure they do all the things needed to make sure their brains are in the best shape possible.

Do employers know that they are being short changed? If a top-class athlete turns up to an Olympic final without training or following an appropriate regime designed to achieve top performance, they will fail. It is no different for a professional knowledge worker. When the employee is in the office workplace, losses in cognitive performance can accrue from factors that consume cognitive energy but add no value.

If the lighting is poor, our brains struggle to interpret the squiggles on the page that are letters.