Décisions de transformation et sous-estimation des savoir et savoir-faire impliqués : le cas des activités de manutention

Abstract

 All aspects of work have undergone gradual change, particularly with regard to its nature: manual and/or intellectual. Among the many causes of these changes are technological progress, the development of artificial intelligence, the widespread use of the Internet, and the automation and robotization of activities. These changes have been accompanied by an accelerating decline in manual jobs in certain sectors, particularly manufacturing, while at the same time, in other sectors, there has been a shortage of manpower in jobs with a manual component, and whose performance of tasks involves the mobilization of knowledge and gives rise to practices (know-how) that are often underestimated. These changes have led to organizational transformation decisions being taken, often without sufficient understanding of the knowledge and know-how involved, which is a source of difficulties that it is pertinent to examine through the present article. Firstly, these difficulties are identified and then analyzed in an attempt to understand how, in a so-called knowledge society, workers’ knowledge and know-how can be so ignored. Secondly, we present examples of the knowledge and know-how associated with manual activities, and the problems resulting from processing decisions that did not take them sufficiently into account.