“The modern workplace” is an expression often used as if
there is just one kind, while the reality is that workplaces are complex and
differentiated. But if one workplace deserves to be ranked as increasingly
important, it is the multi-occupational workplace that has not only multiple
occupations creating a product or service together, but also no order in the
form of top-down hierarchy or start–finish sequence. The occupations in such a
workplace work together, and the potential for failure anywhere to ruin the
output gives every one of them power. Think of the large and growing medical
sector, the many new services using information and communication technology,
and the increased customization allowed by computer-aided design and
manufacturing.
So how do occupations interact when all are interdependent,
all at once? Beth Bechky and Daisy Chung showed in a new article in Administrative Science Quarterly that it
depends on how the organization acknowledges occupational power. They studied
firms doing equipment manufacturing and film production: both places with
multiple occupations interacting at a high level of expertise to achieve customized,
high-quality output. It turns out that the procedures in the two types of
workplaces were very different, although they shared the feature of each
occupation having significant power over its own work and influence on the
other occupations. This combination of having power and being influenced was
not a battleground, but a complicated and pragmatic interaction.
The differences in procedures were clear. The equipment-making
firm maintained the semblance of hierarchy and temporal order, with products
starting out as engineering documentation and proceeding to test assembly and
manufacturing, but the actual work involved feedback and adjustments that led
to cycles as the later stages made clarifications and corrected mistakes.
Importantly, everything was in theory documented formally, even the
adjustments, and work was done “by the book.” Film production, on the other
hand, did not seek to define a hierarchy among occupations and had simultaneous
interaction as production proceeded. In film production, the power of each
occupation over its own work was fully acknowledged, and interaction among various
occupations was direct and egalitarian; in equipment production, the power of
each occupation over its own work was hidden, and interaction among various
occupations was channeled through the process of documenting the product
specifications.
These differences also affected how each occupation
functioned internally. Because some occupations in equipment manufacturing were
formally seen as subordinate, they conducted close internal quality checks to
ensure that their members’ work was perfect along the dimensions they
controlled. That way they maintained as much control as possible. Because film
production lacked such ranking, the emphasis was not on internal control to
keep quality uniformly high, but more on recognizing each member’s specific
strengths and mentoring junior members into the occupation.
Why the differences? Keep in mind that these occupations are
working together in a pragmatic way to solve organizational problems. The main
class of problem has to do with time. Any organization dealing with occupations
with well-established hierarchies is dealing with historical time and must not
deviate too far from how things were done before, when interdependence was
less. So they make the documentation system work in ways that maintain history
and handle interdependence. Any organization dealing with unfolding events is
dealing with the event clock and must not slow down direct interaction among
whatever combination of occupations has the capability to deal with the current
emergency; even as the occupations have widely differing formal authority,
scarcity, and pay, they interact as equals. Organizations operate to deal with
time.
