What is a Knowledge Worker?

I often describe myself as a knowledge worker or as the Internet defines it so eloquently,

someone who works for a living at the tasks of developing or using knowledge.

For example, a knowledge worker might be someone who works at any of the tasks of planning, acquiring, searching, analyzing, organizing, storing, programming, distributing, marketing, or otherwise contributing to the transformation and commerce of information and those (often the same people) who work at using the knowledge so produced.

"We are the people who think about thinking about thinking."

We are the folks who find ways to help others be more successful. As thankless as it often is, we do this kind of work because we can't help but see things that a lot of others do not. It's a great way to become better at teaching, coaching and growing your own credibility.

We are the folks who voluntarily go through the Google or Facebook certification programs in our free time because... Well, we can't help ourselves.

Knowledge workers are the type of folks who built the Driving Sales HCM platform.  They seem to understand that in order to be successful we all need to decide and discuss what success looks like.

If you are reading this post I would bet that you are most likely a knowledge worker. For the simple fact that you have taken it upon yourself to better understand your job through the shared wisdom of others in this community.

If You Don't Care Why Should Your People? 

• When we don't have career paths we tell our people we don't think they are worth or can do more than whatever it is they are doing now.

• When we don't have proper training we tell our people we don't think they can learn how to be better at what they are doing.

• When we don't have certification programs we look like we don't care about the positions we ask people to fill for us. 

We Need to Start Building Now!

Google and Facebook along with many other companies have realized that by building a certification program they are developing more loyal customers (like us) who will spend more money and time using their platforms because we've grown expertise. 

We need to start building the frameworks to make sure we are making each day as productive or more productive than the previous. We need to grow the expertise and skills of the people that we choose to fill the roles we believe are important to our success.

Reducing turnover and increasing employee loyalty are all great stats to show for sure. 

But the better story is the one where we show our people that they are worth investing in. 

How are you showing your people that they are worth investing in?