Month: January 2025

Thought work doesn’t require a centralized commute-in office

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As knowledge or thought work as it’s called becomes virtual and is done outside of centralized commuter offices, some knowledge organizations nevertheless believe it must be performed co-located, factory style. According to Roger L. Martin, knowledge organizations are indeed factories – “decision factories” as he termed them in a 2013 Harvard Business Review article.

The process of reaching decisions involves a lot of thought work and analysis that by definition is not tied to a physical location in time and space. That’s because it occurs in the brains of thought workers. In teams and project work groups, they share information and exchange ideas and insights as they move toward decisions.

Sometimes that involves in person brainstorming sessions with Kanban and white boards in smart conference rooms. But in most organizations, that’s not a daily activity that requires knowledge workers to commute to an office daily and incur the personal expense of the commute. They can do their work from their homes or other nearby location without the need for them to climb into a vehicle and travel to an office, often distant from their homes.

Tipping point: Virtualization and decentralization of knowledge work disrupting traditional concept of employment

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Under the traditional concept of employment, an employer sets the conditions of employment: When, where and how the work is to be done by employees. That is colliding with the virtualization and decentralization of knowledge work. Advances in information and communications technology (ICT) over the past five decades have rendered time and place far less relevant. Knowledge work can now be done most anywhere and at any time.

This shift didn’t happen overnight but over the past five decades. Its sudden acceleration since the 2020 pandemic follows a pattern where meta change grows slowly and then reaches a tipping point. That tipping point is now at hand. Some knowledge organizations are navigating it without much trouble while others are struggling to adapt as the former centralized office-based model gives way.

Employment in knowledge work as it has been understood will likely be reformed. That understanding included an expectation that because knowledge work was confined to a particular time and place, knowledge workers must expend their own time and resources in order to physically occupy that designated space and time.

That expectation is naturally now being questioned. Knowledge workers owe a duty to perform their work to the best of their ability for the organizations that retain them. Nothing more can be reasonably expected of them. And that includes a school/classroom like attendance policy that does nothing to further their efforts or the missions of the organizations they serve.

Virtualization of knowledge work could portend major downsizing trend

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As knowledge work is virtualized and decentralized out of commute in offices with modern information and communication technologies, some organizations are questioning their space needs. And concurrently, apparently also their staffing levels. They are doing so by adopting mandatory office attendance policies as a condition of employment. Those who don’t show up face being asked to resign or be terminated.

A big question going forward is once those positions are vacated when their former occupants depart is whether they will be filled again or eliminated.

If the latter, the virtualization and decentralization of knowledge work also portends a new era where organizations no longer permanently employ large numbers of knowledge workers, concluding they can fulfill their missions with significantly reduced staffing levels. This is a critical issue since for most organizations, human resources and office space make up their biggest overhead expenses.

This has substantial implications. It could redefine knowledge work as primarily project versus employment based where knowledge work is delineated by a set job description and duties. That in turn could lead to increased use of consultants, contract staffing and professional service firms that many knowledge organizations are already utilizing.