Over 40 years ago, the legendary management consultant Peter F. Drucker observed growing numbers of "knowledge workers" in the labor market, which he defined as "the man or woman who applies to productive work ideas, concepts, and information rather than manual skill or brawn." As it turned out, the ubiquitous use of computers and the Internet to gather and communicate information has created a market where the majority of employees are knowledge workers. Yet, as Drucker foresaw decades ago, one of management’s greatest challenges continues to be finding the right tools to make knowledge work productive. One particular management decision establishing an office of the ombuds is very effective in enabling knowledge workers to perform better and the organization to function smarter.
Research into the nature of knowledge work conducted by Thomas H. Davenport has shown that knowledge workers, generally, are collaborators: they are interdependent across physical locations and time zones, and must communicate with one another, many times across functional areas, in order to accomplish their tasks. For example, they use social networking to exchange information and gain knowledge that will help them to invent new products and services, design marketing programs, create strategies for distribution and manage customer relationships. Knowledge workers enjoy autonomy and as such tend to work independent of management. As a result, they are subject to much less observation than the workers of decades past, and are to a large degree free from a supervisor’s daily instructions. This creates special challenges for management for two main reasons:
