Workers are considered to be the primary drivers of economic success. When managers focus on employees, firms can achieve better performance and profits. However, this focus on employees can be counterproductive. Firms cannot increase performance by concentrating on the most highly paid members of the workforce. Firms must concentrate on the people who are driving the most value to their firms.
For example, the recent recession was caused by firms that focused on highly paid executives instead of the low-paid workers driving the value of their firms. The recession was bad for everyone except the top-paid executives. I think this is one of the more common mistakes companies make when they turn to worker specialization.
The problem is that the generalists are being paid a lot more to do their jobs. And the generalists are generally the people with no special knowledge or expertise. When the economy turns around, the generalists will be among the first to suffer. The next time you’re going to be an executive, ask yourself whether your job is worth being so specialized.
In any case, specialization means that you’re doing more of the same work, and the generalist is the same worker doing less of the same work. But specialization allows you to get better at your job. The generalist might be able to spend more time on researching his latest research paper or doing some more thorough research on another issue, but if you’ve been doing that a lot, you’ll get better with more practice.
The best thing about specialization is that you don’t have to be an executive or a contractor. You can be a business executive or a software developer, but you’ll be doing the same work every day. You can study your boss’s office and test your skills, and if you do good enough, you’ll get an even better job, too.
So if youre a software developer, youll be working with your boss every day, and if youre a business executive, youll be working with your boss every day. But a lot goes on before and after the work day. A lot of your time and effort goes into networking with peers and building relationships with clients and suppliers. If you get good at this, you can get a good job with a great company.
The way this works is that specialization by workers creates more wealth for the firm. A lot of the companies we work for have a very talented and dedicated staff. But the companies that are looking for more skilled workers (and who would benefit from it because they have more money) put the skills they want into their job descriptions. For example, we might have a great sales team, but our sales manager doesn’t want to be selling stuff on the web. She wants to sell stuff in person.
In a way, it’s a tradeoff. If your company has a really good sales team, then you’re going to get a lot of calls from them. But if the sales team isnt so good, they probably won’t call. In the long run, they’ll be better off if their sales team works at the company rather than making them more money.
You can have a great sales team, but they might not be very good at selling things on the web. Theyll have better things to do.