The Seven Dwarfs are alive and well in your workplace

When you think about it, your employees can be broken down into seven personality types. Which brings to mind Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Look around those cubicles. Though not as cute and cuddly as forest gnomes, each one of your employees embodies a dwarf type.

Doc: Consider yourself lucky if you have a few Docs. These are the industrious workers—your top talent and they know it. Doc is pompous, but you don’t mind. She produces. Doc is a leader, but is often self-centered about it. She’s usually too busy to pay attention to or hobnob with the other six dwarfs, especially Dopey.

Dopey: Often he’s the comic relief in the workplace. He can take a joke. He’s the guy who suffered wedgies in grade school and got snow stuffed down the back of his shirt. Somehow, he still has the propensity to attract it. Socially clumsy, Dopey is rarely in line for a promotion and would not be a good pick for a member of a hiring panel, but he doesn’t care. Dopey can get his work done if others would stop goofing around with him.

Bashful: He’s easy to spot because he didn’t say a thing in the meeting. Or in any meeting, come to think of it. Oh, he thinks a lot and knows a lot and he’s probably a studious worker, though he seldom ventures into the breakroom and rarely exchanges pleasantries with anyone in the hallways. Bashful is an introvert and is cautiously focused on his tasks. You’ll find him proficient in office technology, or oddly, savvy in social media, though he shuns interacting with people in the flesh. He sees Happy as frivolous.

Happy: You need Happys. They’re vital to any workplace. They start the office parties, decorate the cubicles for Halloween and push for the new Keurig in the kitchenette. Bring-Your-Pet-To-Work Day? That’s them, and very little work got done that day. But that’s OK. Imagine an office without Happys. When Happy’s enthusiasm and buoyancy is channeled toward the company’s interest, you prosper.

Grumpy: No office is complete without a curmudgeon or two. You don’t need ’em, but you got ’em. These folks despise Happy. “What was wrong with the old Bunn coffee maker?” Grumpy challenges things. She can get her work done but sometimes you wonder if all her naysaying, putdowns and bickering is worth it.

Sneezy: Although she doesn’t actually sneeze much, she does take a lot of days off and will probably max out the company allotment. Sneezy’s got a lawyer’s knowledge of the Family and Medical Leave Act. She’s stocked with tissue boxes and her top desk drawer makes the “Advil rattle” when she opens and shuts it. You can almost always tell when Sneezy’s going to call in sick the next day: With half-closed eyes and in a deathbed voice, she whispers, “My throat’s killing me…”

Sleepy: Your Sleepies don’t really sleep on the job; in fact they come in well-rested and keep it that way throughout the workday. They’re lackadaisical and see their jobs as just jobs. There’s little enthusiasm for their work and they seldom do any more than they have to. These aren’t necessarily the people who came up with TGIF and Hump Day, but boy, they bought into it.

Hey, at least they’re all not whistling while they work.