Labor is defined by knowledge and ideas in our global network society.
Imagine that your boss finally recognizes your strengths...maybe ones that are hidden even to you. Then he puts you into situations and positions where you will thrive.
Optimizing co-workers requires mountains of facts about each employee. Translating the complexity of highly intelligent knowledge workers (into the same types of equations and algorithms that are used to fine-tune shipping or predict the life span and production of a mainframe computer) might one day build richly textured models that behave in their symbolic realm just like their parts.
Sifting through resumes and project records, you can assemble a profile of each worker's skills and experience. Online calendars show how employees use their time and who they meet with. By tracking the use of cell phones and handheld computers, researchers may be able to map the workers' movements. Call records and emails define the social networks of each employee. "The next big step," says Kathleen M. Carley, a lead researcher in social networks at Carnegie Mellon University, "is to take tools like this and tie them to scheduling and productivity programs."
If there isn't any work to justify an employee's immense talents, shouldn't corporate leadership put him on something else, just to keep him busy? Not, necessarily. A star employee's job satisfaction is one of the automatic system's constrains. If workers get angry or bored to tears, their productivity is bound to plummet. The computer keeps this in mind (in a manner of speaking) by dealing very gently with superstars. Since they make lots of money for the company during short bursts of activity, they get plenty of time on the bench.
The superstar is roused off the bench when he reaches in his pocket and sees a message asking for 10 minutes of his precious time. He might know just the right algorithm, or perhaps a contact or a customer. In a workplace defined by metrics, even those of us who like to think that we're beyond measurement will face growing pressure to build our case with numbers of our own.
Source: BusinessWeek, September 8, 2008