Have you read through someone's resume recently? Have you had some one try and sell themselves to you or your company for employment? I would be pretty certain that at some stage of that sales pitch or resume pitch, the words "Hard worker" or some other form of these words would be mentioned.
How can you measure hard work and an employees work ethic? To take the question further, can you compare two employees or two prospective employees work ethic?
I'm sure that if you ran a poll and questioned 100 working adults whether they work hard, and especially work hard at their place of employment, all 100 would confirm that they work hard and give their best effort at work. But being the skeptic that I am, I can not believe that all 100 will produce the same work rate, results and production.
I recently was telling someone that I thought, that should I work in a very physical type profession, that I would literally work myself into the ground!
To deal with the issue at hand, I believe that I have a VERY high work rate and strong work ethic. I believe that I do typically work more efficiently and harder than most people that you will find in the work force. Due to this very high work rate and work ethic, I struggle to slow down or stop until the job at hand is complete. With this type of work ethic and work rate, working a physically demanding job would have me push myself so hard that the only way to stop my mind and body would be to have me 6ft under.
The question as I mentioned though is that from my perspective, from my opinion, I am an incredibly hard worker that goes above and beyond. Pushing the limits until I have achieved the goals set out. However, is my view point and perspective trust worthy? If most to all people would give you the same answer, how can we compare to understand whether your claims in an interview or on your resume are not only truthful, or something to brag about!
In my time in sports, I often would watch various athletes train and compete. I have watched athletes swear on their mothers lives that they were about to die after running for 5 minutes. Were they really going to die? Of course not, but they thought that they were. Why do some athletes struggle so much with certain physical challenges while others don't. Can it just be broken down to their fitness level, or does it go further?
I believe that it goes further, and more mental. I believe that the athlete that believes that they are going to die never really achieves a high level of fitness. This plays a role in their struggle to do physical activity and achieve in their chosen sport. The athlete can never break through a certain level of pain needed to stretch their physical condition and achieve the higher fitness level. There's that saying, "No pain, No gain!" It is interesting how this pain threshold is so evident when watching a group of athletes. Seeing how some succumb to the least amount of pain while others overcome far greater thresholds.
Now can this theory and human behavior be transferred from the sport field to the workplace? I would love to hear your comments. For the record, my experience points to evidence that there are varying results and production rates from different co-workers!