Too many employers are poorly equipped to weather the recession because they use workersí skills and talents poorly, tie them up in rules and procedures, and give them little say over how they do their work, The Work Foundation says today.
A major new survey of the work-lives of 2011 workers found that:
40 per cent of employees have more skills than their jobs require
65 per cent of workers said the primary characteristic of the organisations they worked for was ërule and policy boundí – though just five per cent said this was their preference
40 per cent said they had little or no flexibility over the hours they worked
20 per cent of graduates are in ëlow knowledge contentí jobs
Ian Brinkley, co-author of the Knowledge Workers and Knowledge Work report, and associate director at The Work Foundation, said: ëSo far in this recession employers have been reluctant to lose the skills, talents and experience of their workforces. Yet at the same time they seem to be failing to make the most of them. Many people could be doing more, but are denied the chance to do so.
ëTo keep job losses to a minimum, organisations should be taking full advantage of widespread opportunities to give people more responsibility, move away from rules and procedure-based workplace cultures, and re-organise work and use new technologies to give individuals more flexibility over hours. More autonomy for people and less intensive management should be the order of the day – in other words greater use of the principles of good work. Trapping so many workers in roles in which their skills and abilities are poorly matched with their jobs is a waste both of economic potential and human possibility.í
Researchers analysed how often the representative sample of workers undertook 186 different tasks in the course of their work with a view to understanding the ëknowledge contentí or ëcognitive complexityí of work across the UK. The survey is novel in that it examines work through the tasks it involves, rather than by occupation, skill level or industry.
Findings of the report include:
The UK has a ë30-30-40í shaped workforce: 30 per cent of jobs have a high knowledge content (requiring greater cognitive complexity), 30 per cent have some knowledge content, and 40 per cent have less knowledge content.*
Across the UK, the ten most common tasks that people do in their work are, in order: people management, data and analysis, administrative tasks, work with products, perception and precision tasks (such as judging the speed of moving objects, judging location and visually identifying objects), leadership, caring, repairing and moving, creative tasks, and personal and domestic tasks.
There is little evidence for the move to a more ëknowledge intensiveí work environment bringing with it a ëtransformationí in work relationships and practices. Knowledge workers were no more likely to be in self-employed, part-time or ëportfolioí-type jobs than others, and job tenures were also similar. In total, three quarters of participants worked regular nine-to five jobs with knowledge intensive jobs more likely than others to conform to this pattern.
Knowledge workers had greater flexibility than others: up to 60 per cent had some choice over hours. However, only 10 per cent of knowledge workers had complete flexibility over their schedules. By contrast, among those in the least knowledge intensive jobs, fewer than 40 per cent had any flexibility over setting their working arrangements.
* The key test of cognitive complexity required for each task was the use of high level ëtacití knowledge – knowledge that resides in peopleís minds rather than being written down (or codified) in manuals, guides, lists and procedures. Classifying UK workers by the tasks they do (rather than occupation or qualification level) results in seven key groups of workers. They are: ëleaders and innovatorsí (11 per cent); ëexperts and analystsí (22.1 per cent); ëinformation handlersí (12.8 per cent); ëcare and welfare workersí (7.5 per cent); ëservers and sellersí (7 per cent); ëmaintenance and logistics operatorsí (11.3 per cent); and ëassistants and clerksí (28.3 per cent). We describe the two highest knowledge groups as our ëcoreí knowledge workers. These high intensity knowledge jobs combined high level cognitive activity with high level management tasks.
Employers squandering the talents of workers
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