Workplace personalities: which type are you?
Identify the types of workers you have in your team and you’ll handle them better and achieve more, writes Amanda Horswill ‘If this emotional detachment goes on for too long and the survivor’s veneer of self-esteem cracks that employee will turn dangerous’
Personality Types
Volunteer:
You are actively engaged at work and you feel like part of a team achieving something greater than yourself. You are good for businesses. If you can keep feeling involved in the decision-making process and that you are valued as an individual and a team member, you will remain a volunteer. Congratulations, and kudos to your managers for helping you to realise this status.
Whinger:
You are happy with your work, but feel betrayed and a little hurt by something or someone at work. You feel a little bruised and your self-esteem is a little low at the moment. You know what the company can do to help you to get over this motivational hump, but no one seems to be listening. If feels better when you talk about it. If you whinge to someone who can do something about your concerns, then there’s a chance you will again become a volunteer. If not, you will slip into survivor or prisoner mode.
Survivor
You feel good about yourself and your life, but are just going through the motions at work, even though you are probably good at your job. You have previously been hurt by something at work, and feel the best way to get through the day is to do just what is asked for in the time for which you are paid. You can sustain this phase for a long time, but it’s not the most effective way to be in most work situations. If you start to talk about what hurt you, even if it is whinging, then there’s a chance that hurt will be fixed and you will reach optimum volunteer status. If not, there’s a chance you will begin to feel trapped-either by circumstances or your unwillingness to take risks- and
you will become a prisoner. There’s still hope.
Prisoner
What are you still doing at that workplace? You hate it, you feel trapped, and if you could leave you would. You can’t understand anyone who enjoys going to work at your company. What’s stopping you? If you don’t go soon, the situation will only get worse and worse, until someone finally does sack you. Go talk to the boss, tell him you want to see a career counsellor and you want the company to pay for it, and leave.
Whinging is good for business. It’s how managers deal with those complaints — if they even get to hear them in the first place — that determines a workplace’s level of employee happiness.
Business performance consultant Edmunds Paterson director Richard Paterson says behavioural research has produced the Oz Model, which is used to chart attitudes only found in Australian workplaces.
The model came out of research conducted in the 1990s with four large companies, to find out what behaviours were characteristic of the Australian culture.
It describes four main groups-the volunteer, whinger, survivor and prisoner.
What groups workers belong to is determined by their level of self-esteem, perceived treatment at work, and ability to “feel” when doing their jobs.
Knowing how workers are feeling on the model’s “give a damn” axis is a handy way to decide how to turn lacklustre attitudes around, he says.
If allowed to deteriorate too far, Paterson says poor employee attitude can be destructive.
The most desirable of all workers is the volunteer. This is a worker who is actively contributing at work and enjoying the challenge. They have a sound self-esteem and attack their work with feeling. They are easy to manage and keen to impress.
The second stage is the whinger, where formerly happy employees start to complain to other workers about something that has happened that has left them feeling hurt or disappointed.
The study shows that whinging is actually a good way for employees to heal.
“Whinging is all about retrieving self-esteem,” Paterson says.
“The motive is quite simple -it’s a retrieval of a sense that I am OK. To do that, they have to shift the blame for whatever has happened to someone else.
The process is: `If I under-perform at work, I am not going to deal with it as a concept of me being an underperformer, but I am going to deal with it in the sense that someone has given me a task that is too hard. I will whinge that the boss doesn’t care about me and I will recruit four or five people to agree with me’.
“For some people, if they hang on long enough and let off enough steam, they do retrieve their self-confidence and self-esteem.”
The good news is that once the worker has had a good whinge, and feels like someone who matters listens and does something about the complaints, they will invariably recover to regain volunteer status.
However, if the whinging worker doesn’t feel they are being listened to, or if they complain to the wrong person, they could become emotionally detached and fall into “survivor” mode.
Paterson says this is fine for some jobs, but the survivor will only do exactly what is required and won’t offer new ideas or efficiencies.
“In an Australian context, you, the manager, might not know someone is whinging at your expense because you are the last person who knows about it,” he says.
“While managers can’t reduce the time spent in this state, they can encourage the concept of people feeling at liberty to express their concerns to people that can actually do something about them. This has massive implications in trust, and one of the most effective methods to achieve that is through effective communication.”
He says some employers prefer to have survivors on staff, and there are some jobs that benefit from that state.
However, if this emotional detachment goes on for too long and the “survivor’s” veneer of self-esteem cracks that employee will turn dangerous. They enter “prisoner” mode, where they hate their job and do everything in their power to make sure everyone around them does, too.
“Make sure people don’t end up in prisoner,” Paterson says.
“If they do, get rid of them.
“By the time a person reaches the prisoner stage, the best result is to release them into a different working environment. Acknowledge the relationship is screwed.
“But you have to be careful how you do it. The reality is that when they first started work, they were volunteers. You still have to treat them with dignity -especially as they will have friends in the organisation.”
Oz model: What is your profile?
Take this test to get an insight into your workplace happiness. While it’s not a scientific study of your true state, the questionnaire could help you determine if you need further workplace counsel. Good luck!
1. When I wake up on work days, I:
a) Jump out of bed, get dressed in my most professional outfit and look forward to the challenging work ahead;
b) Feel generally good about going to work, but I dread getting fresh orders from a manager I don’t respect and who is giving me a hard time;
d) Roll over and pull the blankets up, knowing I will be half-an-hour late but not caring if I get the sack.
2. When people ask where I work, I:
a) Tell them about the interesting project I am working on, and how it might change their lives;
b) Roll my eyes and tell them, adding that it’s an OK place to work but the managers/processes/workplace is not up to scratch;
c) Answer with the name only and then change the subject;
d) Tell them, but say it’s an awful place to work and if I could find another job I’d be out of there quicker than I could say “sack me”.
3. When my supervisor asks me into his office, I:
a) Grab a pad, a pen and whatever documents I need and make my way into the meeting with confidence;
b) Become suspicious about what the meeting is about, look over to my workmates and raise my eyebrows, but go into the meeting with all the necessary paperwork;
c) Stand up, go into the office, sit down, and tell the manager exactly what they want to hear so I can make the meeting end fast;
d) Tell the manager I can’t go, and instead go out for a coffee break.
4. When my manager asks me to do a task outside my usual duties, I:
a) Give it a shot, as I figure someone has to do it to help out the team;
b) Say I will, then talk with workmates to see if they think the request is as out of line as I believe it to be;
c) Ask the manager exactly what they want done and just do that;
d) Tell the manager no, adding that if he or she tries to compel you then there will be trouble.
5. When I think about the company I work for, I feel:
a) Happy with what we are trying to achieve, and feel part of the team;
b) That the job is OK, but the way I am asked to do it is all wrong, and everyone who works there knows what I am talking about.
c) Nothing, it’s a job and I am doing it to get paid.
d) Hate as I am trapped. If I could leave, I would, but I can’t so the bastards will just have to put up with me and I am not going to make it easy for them.
Results:
a) Volunteer: Good on you. You are happy. Make it count. Guard against negativity.
b) Whinger: Make your whinge count — tell someone who can do something to fix your problems (even if that’s you fixing your own behaviour). If you do, you may be on the path to glory once again.
c) Survivor: You are just going through the motions. Time to decide — act with feeling or remain a workplace drone with a heart of stone. Be a whinger, you will feel better, and you may even become a volunteer.
d) Prisoner: Get out, and get out now. What’s the point of staying at a workplace you despise? Rediscover why you wanted to do this job in the first place, and then find another place to do it.
