rate-buster

An employee who is highly productive and exceeds the formally agreed rate of output for the particular task. Whilst this is advantageous for management, rate-busters are usually disliked by their colleagues because their action provides managers with the excuse to raise the rate of output for all the other employees. Typically, there is informal social regulation of work in most workgroups where rate-busting is deemed antisocial behaviour and potential rate-busters are brought into line by their work colleagues through a mixture of persuasion and coercion. [See Stakhanovite.]