Dq-4.1-Sheila Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Dq-4.1-Sheila - Essay Example Knowledge workers are important for an organization for two reasons: innovation and growth (Davenport, 2005). Their jobs involve complex tasks and even more complex decisions. With the advent of new technologies, knowledge workers have become quite independent in the sense that they may not see other team members regularly. This presents various challenges regarding seamless communication. Online collaboration tools counter the challenges by enabling timely decision making, quick answers to knowledge worker questions, and uninterrupted communication (Power, 2013). Knowledge workers are especially involved in collaboration due to the nature of their jobs that require quick clarifications, decision making, communication, and finally, completion. Thus, collaboration in simple terms refers to a task which requires collective and coordinated effort for completion and in the case of knowledge workers, data, analytics, and consultation. Knowledge workers work with terabytes of digital data in an increasingly knowledge-centered environment. The emergence of collaboration tools have allowed knowledge workers to be assisted and supported by managers virtually. Groupwares are collaboration tools that are specifically suited for team based collaborators (McNurlin, Sprague, and Bui, 2009). Collaboration tools include online cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Docs, and Sky Drive, video calling services like Skype, Facetime, and Google Hangouts, desktop virtualization services, and so on (Kroenke, 2011). Collaboration involves the use of file sharing, instant voice over and text chat, video calling, and other utilities so as to communicate, share, and discuss about a particular subject. Managers may communicate to their knowledge workers about the required tasks using these channels. They may also comment on their existing work such as files while knowledge workers may