DUCKPOND

While it is not the message of guru Tom Peters and his team, with the new computer technology the dumb workforce is leading edge management. Apparently Epicurus said there was four things needed for happiness: enough to eat, a place to sleep, friends, and time to think about life (a blog!).

Now there is a explanation that happy workers are better, more productive and innovative workers in a modern workplace. Alex Kjerulf puts the proposition:

Another very important driver is that as work changes, as work becomes less about manufacturing and repeatable processes, and more about innovation, teamwork, communication, and customer service, companies are finding that they need happy employees. Studies have proven that happy employees are more innovative. They communicate better. They’re better collaborators. Happy employees make for happy customers.

The happy worker paradigm is not universal, nor for many leading-edge management. David Macaray starts with a definition:

De-skilling is to virtuosity what Agent Orange is to foliage. While its primary goal is to improve efficiency through standardization, it’s also a means of “neutralizing” a workforce.

and then goes on to suggest some implications:

De-skilling . . . has the potential to erode what’s left of blue-collar dignity and leave in its wake a sub-class of drones. By stripping workers of their craft-effectively washing out their value on the open market-de-skilling has revealed itself as automation’s evil twin brother. And there’s no easy “fix” in sight.

Now this remarkably consistent with Work Choices, which designed to pay people less. The de-skilling of low skilled jobs is optimal, as it is dehumanizing. Now there may be an economic argument against this leading edge management:

While accuracy has improved significantly, productivity has not. Forcing checkers to paint by-the-numbers not only prevents any creative time-saving, it’s a morale buster, an insult, like hitching a thoroughbred race horse to a plow. Also, with everything tied to one computer, a minor glitch now shuts down the entire warehouse.

Then again, perhaps there are societal choices to be made. In that case economic determinism, or is it economic rationality, should not be allowed to run unchecked, and the decisions should not be left to profit-obsessed corporations.

This is an example of an issue that goes under the radar of electoral politics premised on electoral bribes and fistfuls of dollars.