Knowledge workers are workers whose work output is mainly informational nature, e.g. knowledge, documents, reports, studies, inventions or patents. Many knowledge workers are highly specialized experts in their field and able to act self-responsible, creative and rational. This high degree of specialization is accompanied by division of labor which takes the shape of work in teams or projects.

Typical job descriptions of knowledge workers contain words like

• Marketing
• Engineering
• Software
• Strategy
• Analyst
• Editor

Knowledge workers work by gathering information, creating information and sharing information. The whole process is accompanied by intense communication with team members. Tools commonly used among knowledge workers are web browsers like Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari, communication tools like email, chat rooms, mailing lists or VoIP. Other tools used by knowledge workers are often highly specialized like Adobe Photoshop, Autocad or the Eclipse IDE.

Because of their high expertise in their fields and the "soft" output of their work, knowledge workers are hard to manage. Managers often have missing insight into the work of the knowledge workers they manage and no metrics that are able to measure the output. Due to this fact and the fact that many information workers are self-motivated and professional, management methods like self-management, bottom-up management and unmanaging are promoted by organizations which success depends on knowledge workers.