Thursday, November 7, 2013

Sachin Tendulkar, 4 Employee Types and Engagement

Sachin Tendulkar will go down in the annals of cricketing and sporting history as one of the greatest that has ever played this game. He had his own share of controversies, humongous public expectations and pressures; and of late everyone had been worried when Sachin would retire. Much to the comfort of those predicting and wishing his retirement, Sachin is finally signing-off and hopefully he does so, on a ‘high’. There has been a lot of unfair criticism of Sachin that he is delaying his retirement. How long a player wants to play is purely his/her decision; as much it is the selectors’ discretion to select or not select that player in the team. It is the selector’s job to see that a player earns his place in the team by the virtue of his non-substitutable merit rather than any other factor.  Sachin’s eagerness and desire to play this game at the highest level for about a quarter of a century was driven by his passion for the game of cricket rather than any other motive, and even if there was one it could have been nipped by the selectors. If they failed, do not blame Sachin.

In the words of his teammate and counterpart for long, Sourav (Dada) Ganguly, Sachin stands-out in the entire cricketing history because of the ‘way he played this game’. No one can deny this fact. When Sachin stepped-out yesterday in the historic Eden gardens, one could see the same enthusiasm and child-like eagerness to play as one had seen when he made his debut as a young teenager. Few have also questioned whether Sachin played for himself rather than for the team, but leaving this argument aside, one thing that has always been unquestionable has been his passion for the game.

On similar lines, engagement of an individual employee could be categorized as Engagement to the Profession (that he/she practices) and Engagement to the organization (where he/she is employed). Those who are engaged to the profession are intrinsically motivated and self-driven. They do have to be told or directed. Organization must ensure that no worry, either on professional or on personal front, ever engulfs them. These types of employees will then just go on do their jobs and making meaningful contributions.  On the contrary those employees whose engagement to the profession is not very high, have to told more, directed more, supervised and guided more.

When we do the classical two-by-two (refer diagram below), four employee types are generated:



Type A: Their engagement to both the profession they are currently practicing and as well as to their current organization, are both low. They are likely to ‘switch’ not only their current organization but also choose a different profession altogether. They are the poor job-fit and poor enterprise-fit people. Trying to retain them doesn’t seem to be a very bright idea. However if they seem to be very good prospects then a role change may be the right thing to contemplate. A change of vertical within the same group may also be considered.

Type B: Their engagement to their current organization is high and in all likelihood this is a more functional engagement rather than a psychological engagement. This is well exhibited by the fact that they do not practice a profession because they are passionate about it, rather they do it because they are good at it. Functional variables at work and rationale engagement works far more than emotional engagement with ‘Type B'. At a later stage, they are likely to choose a second career for themselves.

Type C: They are the darlings for any organization where they are employed. They are engaged to their profession and hence are self-driven and intrinsically motivated, very passionate about what they do and the organization where they work also seems to have done things right on its part. ‘Type C’ are high potentials with high chances of retention. I could have as well called the ‘Type C’ as type S or ‘Sachin Type’.  ‘Type C’ are real assets for any organization. Focusing on ‘Type C’ and do everything possible to keep their engagement levels high is pertinent.


Type D: Engaged to the profession but not to the organization. Recently Gallup in its annual report has stated means that 91 per cent Indian employees are either ‘not engaged’ or ‘actively disengaged’ at their workplace. Out of that the 31 per cent of employees who are actively disengaged are not only unhappy but they also undermine the achievements of the engaged workers. ‘Type D’ is very likely to ‘switch’ their current organizations, very soon. Organizations need to immediately get into diagnosis phase for the ‘Type D’, if it values their presence.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Though in today's working Culture no employee want to remain in any one organisation for such a long period of time, he/she can have an abundance experience in his/her profession but will not remain in same organisation for long period of time, so in type C less number of people fall but Sachin Tendulkar can be one example of this category that he played with same dedication for almost 25 years of his life and he worked hard in his profession as well.

Unknown said...

sachin ....de person who started his carrier 25 years back at the age of 14 .He played his first match against pakistan in pakistan in year1989 never thought that he would be able to serve his nation for these many years.but it was due to his consistance performance and hard work he was able to remain in in squaid of the indian cricket team..in todays era competetion is every where and in order to occupy ur position in any company or organisation one has to perform extra ordinary in order to make his position secure ..it was also truely said by sachin in his farewell speech if u want to chase your dreams never follow the short cutss.and due to his hard work n determination he was one of the greatest playear of the 20th century.......

tharun kumar reddy said...

Firstly i wanna appreciate your thought to compare sachin the cricket god and employee engagement. As he is retiring everyone is interested in his scores, age and how many matches he played etc,. But lot of people forgot how engaged he had been with the indian team and how hard he worked for the team. This is right kind of approach taken by u , which can be easily understood by many people , if you are engaged with your profession and organization you are working with as Sachin did , then success will follow you.

Unknown said...

Sachin comes under the type 3 as he was the regular and
consistent player of the Indian cricket era and was able
to occupied his position consistently in the Indian cricket
team for playing cricket for 24 years.
In the same manner employees has to be work hard and
maintain their position consistently in their organisation.

Blanchard Research and Training India LLP said...
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