Office plankton

To determine what type of employees can be attributed to the office plankton, let's turn to the concept of plankton in biology. Plankton Is a collection of diverse small organisms that are unable to resist the current and therefore freely drifting in the water column.

Office plankton Is the category of employees who sit outworking hours from nine to six, from Monday to Friday, just to get a salary and hold out until retirement. In general, drift with the flow in the office ocean. Sometimes office plankton even works - during a break between tea parties, smoke breaks, playing solitaire games and reading entertainment sites.

In the bulk of these workers do not havesubordinates, do not carry out the most important and urgent work and receive not a very high salary, which allows them without contempt of conscience to neglect their duties. The Pareto Act in Action: 80% of the work is done by 20% of employees. Accordingly, the remaining 80% of employees - this is mainly office plankton, for which there is not much work left.

Office plankton can not always be recognized at a glance: such employees are very fond of studying imitation of rough activity, creating the appearance of work. They walk from office to office with documents and folders in their hands, they fill up their desk, look at Solitaire "Klondike" as seriously as if it were an annual financial report, and periodically sigh, as if complaining about the hard work that fell on them.

Of course, we can not say that office plankton does not work at all: they value their quiet and non-dusty work too much to openly engage in nothing. They just try not to strain beyond measure. Many of them are in good standing with the authorities - including through the ability to present their achievements in a favorable light, even if there seems to be nothing to represent.

Is the office plankton dangerous for the company? At first glance, no. Such people exist in almost every company (except, perhaps, the smallest). They do not seek to increase, do not try to actively fight for their rights. They work, however, not too hard, but the work assigned to them is not so important and urgent that its untimely or substandard performance could bring the company some damage.

But let's take a look at office plankton in terms of consumption of company resources. Each employee is an expense item forcompanies: salary, vacation payment, sick leave and benefits. In addition, employees use the phone, the Internet, electricity, office equipment and supplies ... The list can go on for a long time, and all this is paid by the employer. Reducing the amount of office plankton, you can cut costs for it - and the company's profit will not be less, because office plankton still did not do anything.

What do employers do to get rid of office plankton? Most often the office plankton "nests" in those companies where there is no clear division of responsibilities and responsibilities, clear criteria for evaluating the work performed. Unequivocally distributing responsibilities and introducing transparent criteria for assessing professional activity, it is possible to identify those employees who do not do anything practically, and receive a salary for this.

After that, the employer determines, how many people do he need to perform the daily scope of work, and "ballast" mercilessly dismisses, either cutting staff, or typing instead of plankton really interested in the work of candidates.

But do not blame office plankton for all the troubles: most often it is not a cause, but an effect. Most of all office plankton in those companies where bosses do not know how to properly allocate duties and upload employees really important and interesting work, motivate them to professional activities.

If each of us had the opportunity to findinteresting exciting work on vocation, then there would be less office plankton. Let's hope that someday such an opportunity will be for everyone, but for now - in our power to do everything possible to not turn into an amoeba, living from solitaire to a smoke break.