Managing Creative Workers

There are different categories of employees working for companies. Blue-collar workers do manual work. They work in workshops, on construction sites, in mines. White-collar workers are office clerks, they do paper work. There are service people, they serve customers. Journalists called machines steel-collar workers (but this term is not commonly used). Do you know who «gold-collar workers» are? Broadly speaking, they are creative people who make a great contribution to the development and profitability of companies they work for. They are elite workers of an organization.

All employees need good handling. But gold-collar workers want special treatment.

In his article Managing the Goldcollar Workers, M. L. Goldstein, an outstanding authority on personnel management, describes managing creative people.

Every Thursday afternoon at the Kansas City, Mo., headquarters of Hallmark Cards Inc., nearly 100 employees come into a small theatre to watch cartoons. But not always cartoons. Sometimes it's feature films; occasionally it's film classics. And it's all on company time.

These employees are members of Hallmark's creative department. These writers and artists are actually doing their jobs — searching for ideas to use on cards, wrapping paper and other products.

«Thursday Theatre» is one of the tools Hallmark uses to motivate its most talented employees. The company also regularly sends key employees across the country, even to other continents, with instructions to wander in art galleries, watch plays, or go window-shop-hunting for ideas that might translate into sales.

Sometimes it pays off handsomely. Several years ago, while viewing the King Tut exhibit at Washington's National Gallery of Art, one employee suddenly pictured the famous gold death mask as a puzzle for children. That one trip brought more than a $500,000 return to the company.

Historically, company R&D centres have been the fortresses of innovation. And R&D managers have long understood that creative employees should be motivated and rewarded differently than other workers. Firms like 3M Co., for example, allow creative people to follow their intuition. And the results have been revolutionary new products — including masking tape and wet / dry sandpaper.

Employees whose jobs require a high degree of creativity and special skills, and who are engaged in major projects, are called gold-collar workers. The term was coined by Robert E. Kelley in his book The Gold Collar Worker (Addison Wesley Publishing). Gold-collar workers include such employees as product-development personnel, computer programmers, advertising copywriters and engineers.

Poor managers don't know how to handle gold-collar workers. Some of them don't understand creative people and interfere with them. Other managers are unwilling to take responsibility and encourage innovation. A third type of manager refuses to treat talented employees differently. For many companies it is important to find managers who know how to motivate gold-collar workers.

One key to motivating creative workers is tolerance. Executives should be tolerant of their independence, behaviour, new ideas, and alternative ways of doing things.

More than any other employees, the gold-collar worker also demands feedback on his performance and evaluation.

Gold-collar workers want autonomy. Interference in their work is inadmissible. «The best thing you can do for creative people is just get out of their way. Give them a task and leave them alone», says Peter F. Drucker, a recognized management authority.

Creative people are paid bonuses, royalties and stock. Traditional annual achievement awards are given to them at many companies, 3M and General Electric included.

5. Find in the text the equivalents of these words and word combinations.

Выполняют ручную работу; в цехах, на строительных площадках; выполняют канцелярскую работу; обслуживающий персонал; элитные работники; управление персоналом; главное управление; требуют особого обращения; смотреть мультфильмы; в рабочее время; ищут идеи; посмертная маска; творческие работники; следовать интуиции; сотрудники, занимающиеся созданием товара; оставьте их в покое; традиционные ежегодные награды за достижения (в работе).

6. Answer the following questions.

1. Who are blue-collar workers?

2. Who are white-collar workers?

3. Who are gold-collar workers?

4. What are the tools Hallmark uses to motivate its most talented employees?

5. What are the three common mistakes in managing gold-collar workers?

6. What are the keys to motivating creative workers?

7. Write about handling creative employees. Give examples from your personal experience.

Вариант 2