The Tasters Vs Hardworking Types

Kumar Rahul Tiwary; 2012

With growing competitiveness in the business world, modern workplaces have become complex too. The factors which led to employee satisfaction, loyalty, or productivity have become difficult to ascertain. Yet, I am sure the people’s managers are still keeping hold of the situation.

No matter how ‘perfect’ a workplace is; no matter how ‘perfect’ a team is; there will always be different ‘types’ of resources working in it. I don’t think there is a taboo in tagging or generalizing things here, because such attempts to tag and categorize or even generalize, are inspired by some very ‘real’ things existing around us. Here, I want to present and analyze two distinct types of human resources. I call one type as ‘the Tasters’ and the other are the historical ‘Hardworking’ type. So, what are the characteristics of these two types of resources?

An easy guess would be that ‘the Tasters’, as I call them, would not be hardworking ones. But it doesn’t necessarily need to be that way. Individually they may or may not be hardworking ones; but their distinct feature is that they want to do things only for the purpose of ‘tasting’. They love to do various things; they want to know everything and they are not limited to only to seeing things. In fact they want to actually try their hands at these varied things. But the purpose of their endeavor is not to ‘complete’ the task or to help the team achieve some targets but just to get ‘a feel’ of the task. Thereby, their work doesn’t get to an ‘end’ but becomes a ‘means’ of them achieving some goals which may not be best in the interests of the team or organization. On the other hand, the hardworking types are focused to complete the tasks assigned to them within the least time and with best quality standards. They are ready to put extra hours and slog in order to complete tasks. They will not mind if a big (read stretched) target is given to them; in fact they derive some pleasure out of making difficult tasks appear to have been done easily. Every organization needs and depends on such ‘hardworking’ resources.

Let us consider Amit and Rohit. If their team does 20 different activities as part of job, Amit would know or claim to know almost all of these 20. He might have done only 5 of these jobs on a regular basis so as to know these tasks thoroughly. But for the purpose of ‘knowing how to do’, he knows all of the 20. Rohit on the other hand actually worked or works on 10 of these jobs. He knows these jobs thoroughly, including the challenges and risks in them. He can speak about them with eyes closed what Amit would be able to mumble after flipping through documents and sheets. Rohit is an expert. He is so because he is hard working type. But since Rohit knows only 10 out of 20 jobs, he doesn’t carry the same weight that Amit carries in the eyes of their manager.  

Then one day a critical task comes to the team when Rohit is on leave. Boss asks Amit to finish it since he knows how to do it. Next day Amit meets with an accident, or at least that is the sms he sends to the boss, and he is to remain absent for two coming days. Three resources in the team are somehow able to finish the job. Boss remembers that last time Rohit had done a similarly urgent task in a single day; perhaps by spending excess hours in the office. Boss realized his mistake. But some bosses don’t get to realize their mistakes…

In the scenario of Cricket, the tasters would love to bunk from Test matches and eager to make quick bucks by playing only T20 matches. Such players would fight to get excluded out of tournaments which may be prestigious for the country but less financially rewarding, so as to participate in private events with highest money-making potential or to participate in a tournament in which they have never played before, or being organized at an exotic location, thereby accomplishing their personal goals. Their targets are personal and not matching with the targets of their team.

I think every organization has such ‘tasters’. These tasters may still appear better than the ‘wasted’ idle ones who are not interested in doing jobs at all! But this may also be a misconception. Every team knows their weakest links and slowest players; thereby it is able to divide responsibilities in such a manner that on an overall basis they still meet the targets. But the ‘tasters’ camouflage themselves. Team doesn’t know that they are only ‘tasters’ and their intentions and goals are not exactly matching with team’s. At a critical time, such resources can be very risky…

So what should be done? Should these tasters be converted into the hardworking type by constant interference by bosses? Or should other colleagues decide not to help these guys in playing their own games at the overall cost to the team? I think the key is in knowing. The moment the boss knows and recognizes these ‘tasters’, the testers will realize it and take a corrective action… So knowing is the key…

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization associated with the author. The incidents or examples mentioned in the article, or cases based on which article is based, are for illustration purpose and need not be from author’ real personal (work) experiences.