McKinsey released a thought provoking article last month that presented a framework to describe the various kinds of workers and work that exist in typical organizations. The framework places workers in a four frame grid based on two criteria: interdependence and work complexity.
The key point of this framework and the article is to put forth an argument for knowledge workflow and automation tools to support workers in the lower right and upper left quadrants. While these ideas are intriguing on their own—particularly as they relate to talent management automation—the framework itself raises interesting questions and implications regarding talent management practices:
Recruiting Implications
Are there specific recruiting best practices and approaches that fit each of these worker types? It’s self-evident that we recruit senior leaders and consultants differently than an hourly cashier. But what about the Expert model? Do we recruit for this role the same way we do a typical knowledge worker or might there be specific nuances in the approach?
Onboarding Implications
How do we onboard these various roles? Anyone who works in an “interdependent” role would likely benefit immediately from connection to larger organizational social networks and access to discussion forums. Expert roles would likely benefit from some time to digest and consume content, followed by opportunities to begin acting autonomously with some decision-support scaffolding in place.
Training and Development Implications
How do we train and develop these disparate worker types? While all of these workers would find value in a certain amount of routine, “cover-the-basics” training, from there the needs diverge dramatically. Interdependent workers need to share expertise, uncover new ideas, and collaborate on process or raw ideation during the course of their normal work and thus would benefit from a supporting collaborative infrastructure. Individual actors in expert roles on the other hand would benefit from more structured collaboration activities to share knowledge and expertise with peers since they lack such opportunities in the normal course of work.
Performance Management and Compensation Implications
How do we manage performance and judge success across these roles? A significant body of research has demonstrated repeatedly that monetary rewards are effective in motivating manual workers, whereas autonomy, recognition, and independence are the key drivers of any work that involves cognitive skill. In fact, research shows that monetary rewards for cognitive work actually undermine intrinsic motivation and lead to worse performance. See this fantastic YouTube video for a summary of this research.
In organizations with a mixed workforce, it’s clear that we need develop different performance and compensation strategies for manual workers versus knowledge workers. What’s less clear is what we do about those folks who straddle both worlds – aircraft mechanics or phlebotomists for example.
Workforce and Succession Planning Implications
When we are thinking about workforce and succession planning, we obviously don’t think about manual workers the same way we do about senior leaders and highly talented knowledge workers, but should we also be thinking differently about the “interdependent” employees? Is there inherently greater flight risk for those workers whose job specifically requires external coordination and networking? Does this also raise opportunities from a recruiting standpoint? On the other hand, perhaps we need to spend more time and effort filling expert, individual actor roles since there are likely fewer network connections to support.
Summary
Fundamentally, this McKinsey framework argues for a deeper organizational understanding of each employee worker type and suggests that we might be well served to tailor talent management practices to them. Given that these various worker types exist in every single organization, it also suggests that we need to support a mix of various talent management workflows and models within the same company to maximize productivity.
Related Thinking
Social Recruiting
Social Media Onboarding
Onboarding: Speeding the Way to Productivity
Boosting the Productivity of Knowledge Workers
Close the Talent Intelligence Gap
Why We Can’t “Motivate” Engagement
