3 Types of Workers in the Marketplace

3 Types of Workers in the Marketplace

For clarity, I will use the term ‘worker’ broadly to refer to all of us in the marketplace: employees, employers, and entrepreneurs. When starting, we are taught the rules of the market. This advice and induction become part of the informal job descriptions. For many, they never stop to reflect on who they are or how they were meant to interpret their work until they have retired. This is why it is possible to discern identifiable patterns of behaviour across professions. For instance, you can identify some by their sharp dress code because their work demand they do so, or how they speak. And this is how many end up unwittingly multiplying patterns of whatever category they chose to be identified with.

Although we acknowledge that each of us has a role to play in the marketplace, to be deliberate, we must understand the three main types of workers.

1. Consumerists
2. Creators
3. Neutrals or double-minded

This is a broad categorization, with finer classifications in later articles.

Consumerist

It is all about them, it is all about creating dependency, it is about creating a nation of consumers to depend on them. It is about creating a profit at whatever cost. Their view is that they are the chosen few to own money and power. Whatever goods and services they offer are all about perpetuating this dynamic. That is why there are fake goods, harmful goods, and even useless ones in the market.  Even when they give an illusion of empowerment, there is a ceiling. This is enslaving. And it is entrenched in many of the systems of the world including education.

Creators

Ideal one, biblical, but not popular. Creators aim to empower people to realise their potential as they become other creators. The focus is on people and genuinely meeting their needs. The goods and services they take to the market meet a need and enhance this purpose. We can learn from the Bible – God chose one man Abraham. Jesus chose twelve disciples, and today he considers all his disciples his friends and not slaves.

The neutrals

These are the doubled-minded workers. They are never sure of themselves and their value systems.  They flow with the market forces and other whirlwinds: in the morning they are talking like creators, but in the afternoon, they are singing like consumerists. They are people pleasers. When dealing with them you never know what to expect.  

What kind of worker are you?

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