Creating the 'knowledge worker'

By Tom Wagner

If you could transform a janitor into a knowledge worker, just think of the opportunities with other employees.

Consider Morticia, the maintenance supervisor for Castle Construction Company, and Fester, a janitor. Fester and the other janitors clean Castle's offices and those of other tenants to whom Castle Construction leases space. Fester mops halls, cleans bathrooms and waxes floors in an unvarying routine, unchanged from the way Morticia first set it up years ago.

But there's a problem. Occupants use areas of the building differently each week. Because the cleaning effort is always uniform throughout the building, some areas don't receive the extra work needed.

Moreover, Morticia is under increasing pressure from Gomez, the company president, to reduce costs, and Gomez is complaining about dirty parts of the building. Things are looking tough for Morticia: fewer resources but increasing demands. Gomez even made a thinly veiled threat to replace Morticia.

Now supervisor Morticia does a smart thing. She meets with Janitor Fester, her longest serving employee, and lays out the situation: cut costs but improve quality.

She also relaxes some of his formerly ironclad work rules and tells Fester he can be flexible on how much time he spends on each building area.

Specifically, Morticia asks Fester to use judgment and spend more time on really dirty areas and less time cleaning areas lightly used that day. Fester is understandably cautious and somewhat reluctant to do things differently because he doesn't want to get in trouble with his supervisor. But Morticia is patient and encouraging, and after a few weeks Fester gets the hang of his new freedom. The overall appearance of the building improves and Morticia receives fewer complaints from Gomez.

One day a mop salesman shows up at Morticia's desk and Morticia does another smart thing. She calls Fester to join the meeting with the salesman. At one point during the meeting, Fester says, "I'm having problems with wax buildup in corners." Then the mop salesman recommends a triangular scrub brush, which Fester thought would help greatly, and Morticia orders the new scrub brushes.

A few weeks later Morticia invites Fester to meet with a cleaning chemical salesman. When Fester complains about having to wait for the floor to dry between cleaning and waxing, the salesman suggests a new product that cleans and waxes in one application. Morticia authorized a trial of the new product, but told Fester she wanted a report on the durability of the one-step application.

Morticia continued to be patient and supportive, encouraging Fester to speak up and think more about better ways to do his job. Fester had never been asked to think before, much less offer his opinion. Although Morticia's new behavior was mildly unsettling, it made Fester feel more valued and respected as a person. These new feelings made Fester take more pride in his work because he wanted more of the positive "strokes" he received from Morticia.

Things improved for Morticia, too. Giving Fester more control over his work took some load off her. Morticia knew she was still responsible, but still felt better knowing Fester was at least "thinking a little" about the end result of his labors. Like Gomez said, "Results, not excuses!"

After a few more months, cleaning supply salesmen began dealing directly with Fester for reorders and new products. They only made courtesy calls to Morticia to thank her for Castle Construction's business.

Thanks to better chemicals and application techniques, the building areas looked better and Fester was able to maintain areas for which he previously never had time.

She continued to encourage Fester and soon had Fester training other janitors how to be flexible and efficient in their work.

Morticia created a knowledge worker. She took advantage of Fester's mind, not just his muscle, and as a consequence created a more productive, happier and dependable employee.

If you supervise people, then you have the power to change the way employees think about and carry out jobs, for both their benefit and yours.