Employee relationship management and knowledge workers: an Analysis of ICT professionals

Purpose – To understand how the emergence of knowledge workers in organizations affect employee relationship strategies. In particular, the paper questions how communication evolves in order to support employment psychological contract based on relationships. Approach – A literature review on professionalism, knowledge workers and the related human resource and communication practices. In-depth interviews with human resources managers in 8 companies in the field of Information & Communication Technologies. Findings – Knowledge workers in the ICT sector tend to have a relational connection with their company and expect a communication environment that allows networking, knowledge sharing and continuous learning. Research implications – To explore whether firms with different employment relations should adopt a different communication system Practical implications – Companies are expected to develop specific relationship building strategies for knowledge workers based on open and user-generated communication, competency development program, flexibility and organizational well-being programs.