Knowledge Workers Needed in the New Economy

The new economy that will emerge out of the crash of 2008 will be based in knowledge, education, skill, innovation and productivity. Employees will need to learn to compete on the global market and this could have a greater impact on the training levels needed throughout most organizations as these companies raise the standard of employee work levels. These work levels must be raised if we hope to beat out the foreign competition in terms of quality, price, and brand name. The success of any organization will rely more directly on the abilities of the employees.

There are only two methods to raising the abilities and skill of your employees which include either training them well or recruiting stronger employees. Both of these methods have their advantages. Training should be used any time that you want to raise the skills and abilities of employees who are currently working at your business.

Training can include many different types such as on-the-job, computer based training, tuition reimbursement, management training, life skill training, conference/video training, online training, and personality assessments. Each of these methods has their own advantages and disadvantages. Some are conducted in-house and others need to be outsourced.

Training is important because it also helps to create knowledge workers. These workers have the abilities to solve problems on their own and take initiative when it is needed. As organizational budgets shrink corporations are likely to continue to lay-off workers. In essence each worker will need to pull more of his or her weight in order to be successful. This extra weight will need to be handled through additional training so that workers develop the necessary skills.

In addition, there is an efficiency aspect with the employees who made the lay-off cut. Such employees will need to handle all of the problems and fill in all of the service gaps. Such employees will need to understand the complexities of the organization and the business environment in order to know what to do and when to do it to retain customers. Training simply helps them get a better grasp of what is going on.

Finally, training can increase the speed by which workers are conducting their business activities. Training can teach them the most efficient manner and can teach them to do the job with higher quality. Efficiency and quality will likely be reflected directly with the customer. The better the customer impression the more likely profits will be retained. One of the organization goals is to maximize their customer return rates in order to maintain loyalty.