Professionals and clerks: One happy family?

Continuing a series on professional issues in records and information management (RIM),(1) this column speaks to the sensitive--but critically important--distinctions between professional practitioners and clerical workers. Such a differentiation continues to be vital to the further professionalization of the RIM field since, by definition, the professional ranks in any field necessarily and categorically exclude the subprofessional levels. On a wholly rational basis, RIM can never achieve full professional status until its professional ranks distance themselves adequately from the non-professional ranks in the field. A continued lumping together of all levels of RIM personnel under the general heading "records manager" is a polite fiction which will serve only to perpetuate the widespread misperception that "records manager" is but "a fancy title for a file clerk."

In the early years of any field, including RIM, distinctions about occupational levels are of slight importance. But let us be clear: until today's RIM field recognizes, accepts, and acts on the distinction between professional and subprofessional levels, further professionalization must continue to be stymied, and professional-level workers will continue having the higher status they deserve dragged downward toward RIM's "lowest common denominator." Here we will review evidence for supporting this reasonable distinction and will suggest some necessary courses of action. Three types of mutually reinforcing evidence will be briefly reviewed: our own experience, common sense, and that from research findings.

NATURAL LAW AND COMMON SENSE

In nature, in all types of human organizations, and in most occupational fields, there are--and always will be--hierarchies. Where there are some birds larger than others, there will be a pecking order; where there are bosses, there will be employees; where there are seasoned experts, there will be rank novices; and where there are professionals, there will be those whose work, whose rank, and whose status will be below that of the highest level of the field--the professionals. That such tiers exist in no way reflects negatively on the character, worth, or intelligence of those at lower levels in organizations. (Albert Einstein, after all, started out as a patent-office clerk in Bern, Switzerland.) Nor does recognizing such levels reflect negatively on the importance of their work, without which any organization would, of course, grind to a screeching halt. In the workplace, however, all workers from the Chief Executive Officer to the night janitor are not somehow "equal." Rather, the larger society has provided each of them--or tried to--an opportunity to be whatever their abilities, motivation, and energy enabled them to become occupationally.

Following further the dictates of both common sense and the reality of our own experience, we know that:

* Not all hospital workers are physicians.

* Not all law office employees are attorneys.

* Not all school employees are principals.

* Not all church employees are ministers.

* Not all construction-site workers are engineers.

Through observation, of course, most people know enough about these fields to understand the distinctions among their workers. RIM is far less visible than these fields, and all too few people know enough about RIM to know that there are any significant differences among those who style themselves "records managers." If the field itself does not, in a clear and formal way, make these distinctions clear, who else will do it? Explaining the nature and purposes of RIM and, in the process, making those necessary distinctions about personnel in the field is part of a large-scale public-education effort for which the field's professional association is chiefly responsible. This process of public education, however, has yet to be undertaken.

One way to understand the factors differentiating clerical workers from professional ones is by reviewing some of the characteristics of professions as identified by researchers in the sociology of professions during the past sixty years.

KNOWLEDGE/THEORY VS. TECHNIQUE

To begin with, the knowledge base of professionals--and the education which develops it--clearly differs in quality as much as quantity from that of clerical workers. This knowledge is one of the primary characteristics of professions:

Professions are undergirded by an organized body of specific knowledge, including theoretical principles as well as specific practical skills. This specialized knowledge serves as one source of legitimization for the profession's authority.(2)

As a result of formal education, normally leading to at least a four-year degree or a degree plus certification, a professional in any field takes a broader and more conceptual, or theoretical, view of the field and the work at hand. Based on their different types of knowledge, the professional's work often involves greater judgment and abstract reasoning than the more concrete and structured work of clerical personnel. A clerical or paraprofessional worker, on the other hand, tends to focus on knowledge needed for skilled execution of specific--often mechanical--tasks at hand. A professional is more reflective and analytical, wanting to know why things work (theory), not merely how to work them (technique). Traditionally, the work of professionals is more ideational (e.g. designing filing systems); that of clerical workers is more physical and mechanical (e.g. coding files for the filing system and then filing the records). The professional, then, is interested in ends as well as means; frequently the clerical worker is not because of lack of interest, insight, or motivation.

Despite the widespread popular misuse of these terms through applying them interchangeably, "training" and "education" differ markedly. Education is a process which prepares a person at a conceptual level for career-level work in a broad array of work environments; training prepares a person for work of limited scope, in a narrow range of environments, and normally for lower-order tasks. It is this distinction in their views of vocation that often represents one of the major differences between professionals and clerical workers: a professional is a person who has career aspirations, not merely an interest in getting a better-paying job.

In society or in the workplace, we understand, if only intuitively, that a professional person has a detailed and esoteric knowledge that laypeople do not have and may not even be able to wholly grasp. We also know that clerical level workers in a field do not have this requisite advanced knowledge or, even if they did, they would not be permitted--either by law (e.g. medicine) or by professional standards (e.g. engineering)--to apply it. Does this mean that professional workers are "smarter" than clerical workers? Absolutely not! (Remember our Einstein example.) What it does mean is that professional-level workers have and are associated in the public's mind with a higher order of knowledge among other things.

This broader, deeper, and higher knowledge, along with the different types and levels of responsibilities of professional vs. clerical workers, tends to condition different orientations, values, and concerns. These contrasting orientations, or mindsets, manifest themselves in a variety of ways as shown on the accompanying sidebar.

DIFFERING ORIENTATIONS: CLERICAL VS. PROFESSIONAL

CLERICAL (WORKER

Do things right Rules, tools Action Set objectives Do it Micro view My job, my unit Transactions Today

PROFESSIONAL (MANAGER)

Do the right things Concepts, abstractions Reflection, analysis Set goals Plan it, enable it Macro view Organization as a whole Transformations Tomorrow

EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS: A "DEGREE" OF DIFFERENCE

At an ARMA International conference several years ago, I spoke on the relationship of educational credentials to professional standing. After my presentation, I was confronted by an earnest young man, who noted that while he had only a two-year degree he was "just as good a records manager" as someone with a four-year or graduate degree. In fact, however, his Level in the hierarchy of his organization at that time suggested that he was prevented from achieving a full professional status by the very lack of the four-year degree he disparaged. Differences in education--type and length--continue to characterize professionals in all fields and to differentiate them from clerical levels:

Professions demand of their practitioners a period of education whose dimensions are clearly defined by the profession itself. The educational experience increasingly takes place in a university environment. This education includes abstract and theoretical knowledge as well as the more technical skills of the field.(3)

Educational requirements for nursing, law, medicine, engineering, librarianship, archives management, and most other fields--in and outside the information management arena--require a four-year degree or more in some fields (e.g., law, medicine, librarianship) for entry at the professional level. In virtually every case, less education is expected at the clerical and paraprofessional levels, and a greater emphasis is put on job-specific training at these levels. For example, the practical nurse in the U.S. has limited training and limited responsibilities compared to the registered nurse; the library clerk bears little of the responsibility carried by the librarian with an accredited Masters degree in library and information science. While clerical training is normally prescribed by one's employer, professional education is prescribed by the profession through its professional association.

As the professional association for the RIM field, ARMA International has enunciated an educational standard for professional-level service in the RIM field:

ARMA International endorses and recommends the following educational credentials for entry level and beyond in the field of Information and Records Management at the professional/managerial level: the BA or BS in Business Administration and/or the Masters in Library and Information Science (MLS) or MBA or MPA with demonstrated course work, at minimum, in: records and information management principles, technologies, and practices; forms analysis, design and management; use of micrographics and other records/documents management technologies; and archives management. ARMA International does not accredit or certify specific academic degree programs or courses, but it does strongly suggest that the coursework recommended above should be largely congruent with the ARMA Education Committee's recommended course syllabi and model degree programs. Further the Education Committee recommends that persons with the credentials and coursework indicated above begin study toward the CRM as soon as is practical after their entry into the field. (Submitted by the ARMA Educational Committee; Adopted the Board of Directors, ARMA International, April, 1987.) That ARMA International has positioned itself to describe and, perhaps, later prescribe preferred educational credentials for the field at the professional level means that it is fulfilling another professional role:

It is a characteristic of established professions that community endorsement of the profession becomes strong enough over time so that the profession [through its professional association] achieves the autonomy to set its own educational standards, curriculum accreditation, and a sanctioned licensing or certification system.(4)

LOYALTY: COMPANY OR PROFESSION?

The difference between a professional's commitment to the field and that of the clerical worker is suggested by yet another recognized characteristic of professions:

As ministers are said to be "called" to the ministry, practitioners of a profession are drawn to it at a level of intensity which implies a long-term personal commitment to the field.(5)

More so than clerical workers, professionals view their commitment as being less to one's current organization than to their field of expertise, the discipline, the profession. The clerical worker's occupational goals tend to lie within the given organization where he/she works; loyalty is to the organization. The professional is a knowledge worker whose knowledge and higher-order skills are portable, easily moved from one organization to another, and are more durable over time than those of the clerical worker. While a clerk may know all the buttons to push to run the XYZ system as it is configured and used at the ABC Co., a professional will understand the characteristics, assets, and liabilities of all systems of the XYZ type.

The difference in outlook implicit here can be striking. During a workshop at which the nature and importance of being a Certified Records Manager (CRM) was being discussed, a member of the audience complained, "Why should I get the CRM when it won't help me do my job better where I work today?"

I was stunned. The point the person in the audience missed is that additional formal education and the CRM are not really in tended to help a person perform job-specific and site-specific clerical-level activities. They are, however, integral parts of a long-term career enriching element of professional development.

PROFESSIONAL AND CLERICAL TASKS: WHAT THE RESEARCH SHOWS

It has been established in a variety of meaningful research studies that there are several levels of workers in the RIM field and that significant distinctions exist between tasks at professional and clerical levels. In her doctoral dissertation, for example, Patricia Wallace found that in RIM there are three major levels of employees: clerks, paraprofessionals (supervisors/coordinators, analysts), and professionals (managers). Staff at each level performs tasks appropriate to their education and experience. A few examples of tasks provided by Wallace for the varying levels are suggestive of the differences among these levels:

Professional (managers):

Plan and organize new records programs or systems Implement new records programs or systems Evaluate effectiveness of records management programs Develop and analyze the organizational structure of the records management program Establish criteria to use in designating records as "vital," "important," or "useful"

Paraprofessional (supervisors/ coordinators, analysts): Maintain records retention schedules Review the need for new filing equipment Check records for correct filing Assist users in location and use of records Recommend schedule for destruction of records Maintain a central storage area for inactive records Supervise destruction of records

Clerical (high school education): Filing records Retrieving records Sorting records for filing Check records for correct filing Code records for filing Retrieve records from records center

Process records for destruction(6)

These research findings are further affirmed in ARMA International's Job Descriptions--Third Edition (1991). Here, through its Standards Committee, the professional association provides career-ladder and position description information which reflects the realities of the field. This guideline helps establish the functions, responsibilities, position requirements, education, and experience expected at various levels in the RIM environment. A few examples of job titles and education levels expected at each of the three main levels will serve to reinforce the fact that multiple levels of RIM staff are a reality:

[Senior] Professional Level (advanced degree; e.g. MBA): Chief Information Officer (CIO) Records and Information Management Director

Professional Level (Bachelors degree or more): Records and Information Manager Records Center Supervisor Records Supervisor (Retention) Senior Records Analyst (Retention) Records Supervisor (Active)

Paraprofessional/Technical (two years of college or two-year degree): Records Analyst (Inactive) Senior Records (Clerk/Technician Records Analyst (Retention)

Clerical (High School Diploma or 1 year of college): Records Clerk (Inactive) Data Entry Clerk Records Clerk (Active)(7)

TAKING ACTION

Now, assuming that we accept the weight of this evidence that such distinctions exist, what should the RIM field do? The following initiatives seem the most pressing:

* Just as the American Medical Association would frown on physician's assistants calling themselves physicians and the American Bar Association would take action should legal secretaries call themselves attorneys, ARMA International should politely but firmly discourage use of the term "records manager" by clerical-and technical-level workers. Its publications, like the Job Descriptions, should maintain these distinctions in a clinical, objective manner.

* A recent profile of its membership by ARMA International showed that only 57 of its members had a college degree of any type.(8) All Association members and all those entering the RIM field should be strongly encouraged to pursue and complete at least a four-year degree in an area (e.g. management, business administration, information management/systems) appropriate to work in the field.

* Having already taken a position on the educational credentials of professional-level staff, ARMA International should likewise specify educational standing suited to clerical-level staff and thereby more fully differentiate the professional and clerical/paraprofessional levels in the minds of employers as well as those new to the field.

* Descriptions of the field and its functions should appear in all vocational and career guides, and those entries should clarify the roles and titles of RIM personnel at the various levels. Other fields (e.g. nursing, librarianship) have already done this and could provide models for similar statements on RIM.

* As there are those clerical-level workers in RIM who wish to achieve some level of certified proficiency, ARMA International should encourage multiple, or tiered, levels of certification in the field along, perhaps, with different titles (e.g. Certified Records Technician) for those certified at lower tiers.

With a clearly defined distinction between clerical and professional levels in the CRM ranks, the meaning and value of certification would become clearer to those in and out of the RIM field, and a percentage of ARMA International members greater than that at present (6.7%)(9) would likely become CRMs.

The acceptance of multiple ranks in the RIM field would not lead to excluding clerical workers from ARMA International membership, but the Association could well provide more training opportunities and publications specifically focused on the needs of non-professionals.

My intentions in pushing for greater differentiation of the professional and non-professional ranks in RIM are ultimately positive. Driving wedges between groups in the field is not one of my purposes. Palpable differences already exist; but they are so ill-defined that they impair the underrated professional level, and the clerical levels are not helped in any meaningful way.

A standard definition of management is that it is "getting work done through others." It is time to set the record straight: the records manager is the manager, and the clerical and paraprofessional workers are the "others." Taking positions in these areas may prove unpleasant or painful in the beginning, but doing so is a necessary step in the further professionalization of RIM.

REFERENCES

1. This series began with "Does Records Management Have a Future?" Records Management Quarterly, 25, i (1991), 38-41, 45.

2. Characteristics of the professional model are here adapted from: Ronald M. Pavalko, Sociology of Occupations and Professions (Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock, 1971), pp. 16-27; for additional insight into how this model applies to RIM, see: J. Michael Pemberton, "Does Records Management Have a Future?" Records Management Quarterly, 25, i (1991), 38-41, 45; Pemberton and Lee O. Pendergraft, CRM, "Toward a Code of Ethics: Social Relevance and the Professionalization of Records Management," Records Management Quarterly, 24, ii (April 1990), 3-8, 10-11, 15; Pemberton, "ARMA's Code of Professional Responsibility," RMQ, 26, iii (1992), 42, 44-45, 52; and Pemberton, "The Importance of Theory and Research t Records and Information Management," RMQ, 26, ii (1992), 46, 48-49, 58. Stimulating discussions of professional roles in organizations and the professional/clerical issues are found in: Mary E. Guy, Professionals in Organizations: Debunking a Myth (New York: Praeger, 1985) and J. A. Jackson, ed., Professions and Professionalization (London: Cambridge University Press, 1970).

3. Pavalko, above.

4. Pavalko, above.

5. Pavalko, above.

6. Patricia E. Wallace, "A Study to Identify Career-Ladder Positions, Records Management Tasks, and Educational Curricula for Entry-Level, Intermediate, and Advanced Records Management Positions," unpublished Ed.D. dissertation ([Philadelphia, PA]: Temple University, 1980) pp. 57-107; for related findings, see Jack H. Imdieke, "The Relationship Between Opinions of Records Management Personnel and Records Management Educators on the Importance of Professional Duties and Personal Traits in the Records Management Profession," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation ([Grand Forks, ND]: University of North Dakota, 1979); Arlene Ann W. Motz, "An Analysis of the Activities of Records Managers, Literature, and Current College Course Offerings with Implications for Four-Year Collegiate Records Management Training," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation ([Boulder, CO]: University of Colorado at Boulder, 1979); Patricia A. Witt, "Identification and Analysis of Records Management Tasks Performed by Secretaries," unpublished Ed.D. dissertation ([Lexington, KY]: University of Kentucky, 1977); and Mary C. Griffin, "Education Needed for Administrators of Records Management Programs," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation ([Columbus, OH]: Ohio State University, 1968).

7. ARMA International, Job Descriptions--Third Edition, Guideline Series (Prairie Village, KS: ARMA, 1991), pp. 3-39.

8. "1993 ARMA Membership Survey" [Prairie Village, KS: ARMA International, 1993], [p. 1].

9. "1993 ARMA Membership Survey," p. 3.

Copyright Association of Records Managers Administrators Inc. Apr 1994
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved