The report of the Society of Human Resource Managers (SHRM) about job satisfaction and employee commitment to the organization, shows that 44% of employees list relationships with colleagues as “very important” issues, and the surprising thing is that this report shows that 79% of employees from this Relationships with their colleagues are fully satisfied. Therefore, maybe the adventures of enmity and grudges and continuous and endless disruption of our colleagues with each other are not as widespread and serious as we imagine! But most importantly, there are different types of people who can be especially useful in your work organization. Hiring managers, please take note: Everyone needs these 5 types of good colleagues at work.
Five types of good colleagues
Good colleague number 1: unifying
Integrators are a group of people described in Deloitte’s Business Chemistry Framework. This institute identifies personality patterns. Integrators understand any issue in a broader context and can bring people together. Consolidators often collect differing reports and opinions and then can share them with everyone before starting a new approach.
They generally want to be part of the group, but some are more introverted and need some quiet time to process what’s going on around them. Connectors love to communicate and have a strong sense of empathy and attention to fine details. Therefore, they can understand people’s personalities and understand their needs. This is the person you need to build and motivate your team.
Good Colleague 2: The Innovator
Innovators are always looking for new ways to do things, says Robin Marks, a non-elected board member of the University of Delaware Career Services Center’s Stakeholder Advisory and Planning Team. At this centre, he has observed several types of key employees who often perform well in the workplace. Innovators are those who look at different situations from a new perspective and look for ways to improve and increase the efficiency of those situations. This is the person you need to automate repetitive tasks or troubleshoot a system that isn’t working so well.
Good partner #3: Defender
We all need someone who likes us. Advocates aren’t afraid to openly support their idea or yours, Marx says, and they’ll support you if they think you need and deserve something but don’t have it. Advocates know very well what their team members need in order to perform well and be comfortable with their work. And then they act to provide those resources or environmental conditions. They want to do the right thing for the people they work with, he says, and generally perform best when they’re asked to do something related to employee satisfaction or customer service.
Good colleague number 4: Paul
Another type of valuable collaborator is the bridge, one of the “intermediaries” described in the book The Economy Broker: How Brokers, Agents, Traders, and Day Dealers Create Value and Profit by Marina Krakowski. Bridges are channels of information and communication. Because of their various communication networks, they are great at attracting cooperation. Krakowski says bridges don’t have to be senior executives—they can be anywhere on the organizational chart. But the ability to connect you to the people and information you need is common to all of them.
“You can think of this person as an information broker, an information trader,” he says. Basically, they all believe that they are people who take useful information from a place where it is known and does not have much value, and bring it into an environment where it is new and valuable.
Good Colleague #5: Pioneer
Need new ideas? So you need a pioneer, another type that Deloitte has identified. These creative thinkers adapt very well to multiple environments and see different perspectives very well. They can consider different aspects of a project or problem and find new ways to improve or fix it. But you can never be sure that a pioneer will bother and do things in perfect detail. But if you love the excitement on a large scale, they can add a big dose of it to your work.
“If you need to change your perspective on something and try something completely new, they’re the ones who love creative innovation,” says Kim Kreisfort, a director who serves on the board of directors of Deloitte’s Client Leadership Center.
If you think it’s great to have people around you who come up with great ideas, and you’d like to work with them and support each other, finding this kind of co-worker might be a step in that direction.