In a organization, there are always individuals with different character, caliber and approaches to work. Contrary to organizational culture, employee personality is unique, though, depending on their type, most employees are likely to fall in one of the four behavioral segments. It becomes very important for managers, team leaders, and other employees to identify these types of employees in other to provide support and boost the team up in case of any problem to really harness the potential of the team.
Knowing the types of employees also helps manage organizations and can make them come up with special management strategies that can motivate every employee. This knowledge is beneficial to those who are in a position of authority and those who are subordinates, as this knowledge will make organizational life more harmonious and efficient.
So to give all the insight this blog will describe 4 key categories of employees, their peculiarities, advantages, and disadvantages, as well as guidelines for better management and development.
While recognizing the different type of employees is best done in the HR department, it is actually a productive way of building up the organizational chemistry.
Why Knowing Types of Employees is Important
- Improved Communication: It soon becomes easier to understand an employee’s work personality and identify key areas which need to be worked on in order to avoid conflicts.
- Better Productivity: Therefore by matching job activities with a given employee’s abilities, productivity and performance is enhanced.
- Stronger Team Dynamics: Knowledge in differentiating between various types of employees will assist in minimizing tensions, develop effective working relations and hence improve team collaboration.
- Retention and Growth: This means that organizations should understand how to support each of those employees mainly to encourage them and to reduce their turnover rates.
Now, let’s describe the 4 main categories of employees and look at how all of them can positively influence organizational effectiveness.
The 4 Types of Employees
The Go-Getter:
Goals are the high-achieving, activity-seeking and outcome-motivated workers who enjoy an active search for tasks.
Characteristics:
- Motivated and assertive and self-directed and achievement oriented.
- Sometimes act independently without seeking directions.
- Experience pressure and are usually those who take charge in a team.
Strengths:
- Provide energy and enthusiasm in the work place.
- Outperform in issues to do with time management and achieving the set goals and objectives.
- To motivate people by their examples and desire to succeed.
Challenges:
- May have tendencies to resist challenges that should take a long time or that are done in a group.
- May add flavours of competitiveness with its team members a factor which causes the harmony of a team to be upset.
- Are workaholics and end up being heavily overloaded with plenty of work
The Steady Performer
Consistently producers are simply the predictable workhorses of the world. With them, routine is always an answer to life’s questions and they can function consistently and in many ways, predictably.
Characteristics:
- This means people should concentrate on the long-term and little by little changes in progress.
- In many cases, shy and may not seek attention, preferring to work in the background.
Strengths:
- Be able to produce results that are satisfactory without close monitoring.
- Perform well work that requires meticulousness, patience and detailed orientation.
- I will aim to build stability around the team.
Challenges:
- May be insisted on not wanting change or having a disposition that resists innovations.
- May be more slow to embrace new technologies or processes among others.
- Absence of motive to take up leadership responsibilities.
How to Manage Steady Performers:
- Ensure that children are in a proper working environment to enable proper growth of the person and also should have a proper schedule that they are supposed to follow.
- Appreciate their efforts to increase the motivation to work.
- Introduce change slowly so that they feel at ease to accept change.
The Innovator
Innovators are bright kind of people who always come with new and unique perspective and strategic thinking
Characteristics:
- Depend on the inspiration of creativity and ideas generation.
- Have fun trying out new technologies, methods, or strategies.
- Most of the time tend to ,counter established paradigms.
Strengths:
- Super talented problem solvers who come up with unique solutions to problems.
- Engage the team with the passion that they have on innovative solutions.
- Support organizations to maintain competitiveness and carry out innovative activity.
Challenges:
- May have difficulty in putting into practice what they have conceived or in carrying out instructions.
- May not be friendly with other employees who are more inclined to stick to the timetable.
- Both can become distracted with the details, but it is generally worse for the larger ideas of the project.
How to Manage Innovators:
- Promote free creativity while defining the constraints of how the concept has to be implemented.
- Assign them with constant performers in order to divide creative work with the practical one.
- Reward their ideas should be encouraged so that they do not stop generating the same.
The Supporter
A supporter is an employee who feels and thinks in organizational terms and gives great importance to integration within the team.
Characteristics:
- Be good at creating relationship and team spirit among people.
- May also play a role of negotiators whenever there is conflict.
- Caring and selfless with other’s interest as a top priority.
Strengths:
- Other recommendable corporate policy reforms include: Encourage good working environment in the organization.
- Process higher level roles that involve relational aptitudes and acuity in dealing with other people.
- To help overcome differences among people with different personality profiles.
Challenges:
- Often may work towards completing the needs of others over attending to their own responsibilities.
- Conflict with assertiveness, particularly in the ability to step up and take charge of something.
- Tends to be overwhelmed in conditions involving high conflict or high stress.
How to Manage Supporters:
When it comes to promotions or transfer, place them in positions that are going to require interpersonal skills.
Early on, one must give precise guidance for them to be helpful in steering the individual towards balancing between the team assignment and personal work.
Give them appreciation and assure them that you are proud of their work.
Strategies of Achieving a Proper Cocktail of Employees
Indeed, a perfect team should comprise all types of employees deployed and discussed in the earlier section of this blog
Each type has its own advantages and together form an efficient work environment characterized by high productivity.
- Encourage Collaboration:Associate the drivers with the supporters so that drive is complemented with compassion. In line with this, team innovators who have reliable performers to implement the ideas.
- Foster Mutual Respect:It is also advisable to teach people at the workplace different working modes to avoid conflicts and increase confidence. Acknowledging the worth of each kind elicits the positive reception and positive interaction.
- Tailor Motivation Strategies:Tripping down and knowing what motivate each types of employees make it easier for managers to adopt ways of keeping them productive.
Actual Application of Types of Employees
To illustrate how these types of employees function in real-world scenarios, let’s explore examples across different industries:
Technology Sector
- Go-Getter: Is responsible for managing projects and making sure that the set dates are achieved.
- Innovator: Invent innovative software or at least knows what new programs should be added to the application.
- Steady Performer: In this job, conducts testing of a software in order to identify bugs as well as guarantee the right quality of software.
- Supporter: Develops a plan which coordinates his/her team communication and guarantee that everyone is given an opinion
Health Care
- Go-Getter: Acts proactively in cases of an emergency.
- Innovator: Explains new techniques in the medical field or new courses of treatment.
- Steady Performer: Creates and retains records of the patients and is very consistent in the treatment.
- Supporter: Counseled patient and families as well as friends in need.
Education
- Go-Getter: Manages the recreational events and promotes learning outcomes.
- Innovator: Creates daily lessons and incorporates technology or interactivities into a lesson.
- Steady Performer: Helps to make decisions necessary to maintain the efficiency of delivering out the curriculum.
- Supporter: Caters for the students, students’ health and tries to create a good atmosphere within the classroom.
Demographic diversity Among the changing and diversifying types of employees:
By the way, it is very important to understand that employees are not stagnant, which however once again reveals the dynamics of performance evaluation. Sometimes, these women might change from one type to another as they progress through their careers, getting new positions, or as their lifestyles change, or even the work setting changes. For example:
- An average worker may transform to a hard working worker after developing confidence in his position.
- When a go-getter takes up the responsibility of a mentor, he or she could well adopt supporter traits.
Conclusion
Knowing four major employee categories—challengers, conservers, creators, and clinicians—can change our perception of relationship between people at work. Every is a unique kind of skill set/resource which is useful and crucial for a balanced, effective group/organization.
By understanding and promoting these various categories, an organization can encourage interdependent work, decrease rivalry and aim at establishing harmonious relations with others. Thus, the self-assessment of the type ascribes the functions to predict and solve the problems experienced by employees more effectively.
Therefore, which of the described types of employees you are, or with which kind of employees you are to work in your team? So feel free to use the comments section below to air your thoughts and do not hesitate to share this blog with other colleagues for knowing about the different types of employees in every organization.