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There is some irony here. As western economies have shifted, from the production of ''things'' to the delivery of ''services'', the proportion of their workforce in “white collar work” has exploded. All kinds of occupations that scarcely existed a generation ago have weaponised themselves into self-declared professions. The ratio of jobs requiring, de facto, university degrees (the modern lite professional qualification) has grown. The number of universities have expanded; polytechnics rebadging themselves. This, too, feels like a [[system effect]] of the modernist orthodoxy: if we can only assess people by reference to formal criteria, then industries devoted to contriving and dishing out those criteria are sure to emerge. The self-interests of different constituencies in the system contrive to entrench each other: this is how feedback loops work | There is some irony here. As western economies have shifted, from the production of ''things'' to the delivery of ''services'', the proportion of their workforce in “white collar work” has exploded. All kinds of occupations that scarcely existed a generation ago have weaponised themselves into self-declared professions. The ratio of jobs requiring, de facto, university degrees (the modern lite professional qualification) has grown. The number of universities have expanded; polytechnics rebadging themselves. This, too, feels like a [[system effect]] of the modernist orthodoxy: if we can only assess people by reference to formal criteria, then industries devoted to contriving and dishing out those criteria are sure to emerge. The self-interests of different constituencies in the system contrive to entrench each other: this is how feedback loops work | ||
Other feedback loops emerge to counteract them. The high modernist programme can measure by any observable criteria, not just formal qualifications. Its favourite is [[cost]]. The basic proposition is, “Okay, we need a human resources operation. I can't gainsay that. But it need not be housed in London, nor staffed by Oxbridge grads, if Romanian school leavers supervised by an alumnus from the Plovdiv Technical Institute with a diploma in personnel management will do.” | Other feedback loops emerge to counteract them. The high modernist programme can measure by any observable criteria, not just formal qualifications. Its favourite is [[cost]].<ref>The great conundrum posed by [[Taiichi Ohno|Ohno-sensei]]’s [[Toyota Production System]] is why prioritise [[cost]] over [[waste]]? Because cost is numerical and can easily be measured by the dullest book-keeper. Knowing what is [[waste]]ful in a process requires analysis and understanding of the system, and so cannot be easily measured. We go eliminate ''cost'' as a lazy proxy. It makes you wonder why executives are paid so well.</ref> The basic proposition is, “Okay, we need a human resources operation. I can't gainsay that. But it need not be housed in London, nor staffed by Oxbridge grads, if Romanian school leavers, supervised by an alumnus from the Plovdiv Technical Institute with a diploma in personnel management, will do.” | ||
It is as if management is not satisfied that we are mediocre ''enough''. For a generation management orthodoxy has been to use machines, networks and our burgeoning digital interconnectedness to ''[[downskill]]'' the workforce. Why pay for expert staff to do drudgery in London when you can have [[School-leavers in Bucharest|school leavers]] do it for a quarter the cost in Bucharest? | It is as if management is not satisfied that we are mediocre ''enough''. For a generation management orthodoxy has been to use machines, networks and our burgeoning digital interconnectedness to ''[[downskill]]'' the workforce, while the scope of that workforce has only grown. Why pay for expert staff to do drudgery in London when you can have [[School-leavers in Bucharest|school leavers]] do it for a quarter the cost in Bucharest? | ||
But are few, expensive, talented, centralised workers really better than many, cheap mediocre ones? The management resource to overseeiing | |||
This signals a lack of respect for the ''work'' — if you are happy having school leavers doing it off a playbook, it can’t be ''that'' hard — but, equally, a lack of respect for machines — if it really is just a case of following a playbook (an analogue [[algorithm]], after all), then why not just program a machine to do it and save all that HR cost and organisational overhead? | This signals a lack of respect for the ''work'' — if you are happy having school leavers doing it off a playbook, it can’t be ''that'' hard — but, equally, a lack of respect for machines — if it really is just a case of following a playbook (an analogue [[algorithm]], after all), then why not just program a machine to do it and save all that HR cost and organisational overhead? | ||