Six personae to look out for at the workplace

About 92 per cent of the workforce in a typical business, is made up of six personae. Each persona has its own unique traits, strengths and characteristics. A Poly Global Persona Research, by FactWorks 2021, suggests that identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each persona can help businesses understand their employees better, respond to them more effectively and device ways to maximise their productivity in these unprecedented times.

1. Communicators: These are employees who are comfortable with systems and devices such as phones. Forming two per cent of the workforce in India, these communicators can be easily distracted or disturbed by background noise, interruptions and lack of privacy. These are the people who will be yearning to return to the office. This group will remain stable for the short term.

2. Office collaborators: Their numbers are the largest, and they account for about 34 per cent of the workforce. They drive and thrive in the conventional office workspace, where high levels of collaboration are required, and they are willing to embrace new technology. For them, the main challenges are background noise, constant disruptions, and the urge to manage communication across devices in a seamless manner. The future will see fewer numbers of office collaborators with more of them preferring flexibility post pandemic.

3. Remote collaborators: About 14 per cent of the Indian workforce comprises remote collaborators. After all, the pandemic has reduced the opportunities for in-person meetings. These remote collaborators require different devices and technologies to ensure seamless communication with co-workers and clients. Such personalities are mainly collaborators from the office who have grown into remote collaborators, during the pandemic.

4. Connected executives: Forming 24 per cent of the workforces, these are versatile and tech-savvy employees who are capable of making quick decisions and resolving issues whenever required. They make maximum use of communication tools and naturally, diversions, interruptions and unpredictable background noise are their main challenges as they require to stay connected across all devices at most times. This need for them to remain connected will persist, and therefore, there will be no effect on this set of personalities any time in the future.

5. Road warriors: They account for two per cent of the Indian workforce, and as the name suggests, people belonging to this type of persona are always on the move, working outside of the office for more than half of the time. They require highly portable, reliable and user-friendly solutions capable of eliminating noise and reducing connectivity snags. Some members of this group may require to travel on and off to complete certain task that need in-person contributions. These workers will also form a stable group size, as those who could not travel during the pandemic will now be back in the field.

6. Flexible workers: These are employees who divide their time between their physical workplace or corporate office, their home office and also travel. These innovators make up 22 per cent of the Indian workforce and are able to adapt their communications channels as they keep working remotely and on the go. They cannot afford to miss out on any information or communication, and feel the need to be always connected. Therefore, they tend to use several communication devices at the same time, to stay clued in at all times. The future will witness more flexible workers, as even office collaborators will end up working more flexibly, adapting to work-from-home, and from the office or any other location.

The remaining employees, who do not fit into any of these personae, form only about eight per cent of the workforce. These are the ‘office independent’ type. They operate in self-directed roles with limited communication and not much need for collaborative technology or tools.

The study, by Poly, the audio and video products company, surveyed more than 5,000 enterprise workers across eight different countries.