This article deals with the changes in the practices of people management, in organizations guided by the knowledge management. The aim is to describe and analyze new ways and contents of selection processes and worker formation, applied in an organization of the automobile sector that bets on the need to develop the workers' abilities and knowledge, in order to keep them updated with the most recent microelectronic innovations. Twenty- six interviews were carried out in the areas of motors manufacturing, maintenance, tools regulation and organizational development. The results show knowledge management and competence management as strategic ways of selecting more flexible workers, predicting their capacity of adaptation and developing labor out of the mass standard. In this way, the organization invests in those workers who are really interested in the process, in order to reduce operational costs, while motivational systems, capable of generating involvement, integration and commitment, are developed.
Knowledge management; competence management; technological innovations; selection; training