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If you work in an office, home office or even out of a car, airplane or boat using what is in your mind versus a skill or trade that requires physical effort the you are considered a “white collar worker”… in today’s parlance the politically correct term is “knowledge worker.”

Knowledge workers primarily deal with investigative, incident or service-based projects. In order to achieve efficient results, these projects typically require the assembly of disparate 
data types, ongoing collaboration across a broad range of personas and interaction with a variety of knowledge bases in unstructured, semi-structured and structured processes.

  • Investigative-based work: Rooted in the need for greater transparency and requires knowledge workers to gather data from various sources (e.g., internal and external systems and services) in order to make a judgment on a case. Examples include investigating fraud, performing audits or other activities of due diligence.

  • Incident Processing-based work: Exceptions need to be resolved quickly, being sensitive to the needs and expectations of the customer. These solutions are typically event-driven and examples include managing complaints, helpdesk requests and order exceptions.

  • Service Request-based work: Typically high-volume, goal-driven and involve a high-degree of collaboration between different parties, inside and outside of company boundaries.  Examples include insurance claims processing, mortgage approvals and employee on-boarding.

 Knowledge workers also combine data with collaboration and interaction with other technologies to make decisions according to three types of work expectations:

  • Business rules driven: Work that is bounded by specific corporate governance or rules in order to proceed from task to task. Examples include peer audit of work processed or specific reporting requirements for work done.
  • Milestones driven: Work that is not bounded by rules but is required within specific time or activity frameworks.  Examples include customer response or letter generation.
  • Meta data driven: Some work is driven by the type of data it is. Example privacy requirements associated with sensitive or financial information or tasks.

If you have determined that knowledge-based work is core to your business then I highly suggest checking out what dynamic case management solutions can do for your business.