5 Ways To Optimize Productivity Performance Of Knowledge And Routine Workers

By Maricel Rivera, Comindware

In a recent article by the Huffington Post, researcher and writer Stowe Boyd referenced the work of two Oxford researchers, Carl Benedict Frey and Michael A. Osborne. Frey and Osborne found that 47 percent of routine jobs are at risk of being automated, with humans being displaced from these jobs and the demand shifting to more non-routine, creative work — a phenomenon, cited in a report by Liberty Street Economics, called job polarization.

Determining routine from knowledge work

Routine work is, according to the same Liberty Street Economics report, composed mainly of “tasks that require following explicit instructions and obeying well-defined rules.” Knowledge work (controversial the term may be) is more flexible, unpredictable, and involves a higher level of creativity and problem solving. According to MindTools, knowledge workers are core to an organization because of their experiences, ideas, judgments and interpretations that are essential to keeping the business alive and moving forward.

Liberty Street Economics used data from the U.S Census Bureau’s survey showing that from 1975 to 2015, the demand for non-routine occupations — occupations that entail knowledge work — have increased from 40 percent to 60 percent and continuing upwards, while the opposite is happening to routine jobs, trending way back down from 60 percent. Those from the routine group tend to be workers in mid-level jobs, while those in the non-routine group belong to the highest-level and lowest-level skilled job groups.

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