Becoming the person that other people can rely on at work is not only a way to ensure job security for yourself, but it’s also one of the best ways to stand out in your workplace—and for your efforts to be recognized by your colleagues and managers. With your coworkers knowing that they can repose confidence in your skills, experience, and work ethic, you’ll be in a position to lead and deliver better value to your organization.
Achieving this can be challenging, but it’s certainly worth all the effort if it means being given the opportunity to be promoted or being able to advance in your career. If you’re not sure where to start, here are 9 tried-and-true ways of becoming indispensable at work:
1.) Have a Skill or Combination of Skills No One Else Has
The easiest way to become indispensable at work is to have a monopoly of important skills or skill combinations. Beneficial cross-competencies in such areas as marketing and process automation are especially useful in many instances.
One of the easiest ways for Singapore-based professionals to develop these vital skills is through SkillsFuture funded courses. These certificate courses are specially designed to help experienced professionals add more value to their skill sets, making them a go-to way for anyone who wants to become an indispensable part of their team.
2.) Be a Proficient Generalist
Even if other people in your team are better than you in specific areas, most organizations have a place for competent generalists who can elevate whichever team or department they’re in. Such generalists are often sought after by managers and business owners, as they offer a good deal of short-term flexibility and development potential that is somewhat rare these days.
3.) Consistently Offer Good Solutions
Being able to offer or implement solutions that benefit people in your organization will eventually make you someone that people rely on. When these solutions need skills that only you have, you’ll eventually become a part of the team no one can do without.
4.) Be Known for Reliability
While it’s good to be able to do things no one else can, in some ways, it’s more important to be known for your reliability. Being reliable means that team members are more likely to turn to you, even if there are other options on the table.
Reliability is often down to a combination of small things such as always being on time and respecting deadlines. Being supportive and loyal to other people in your organization is also a mark of a reliable employee.
5.) Be Likeable
Being likeable is an important part of being indispensable because it increases the chances that people will turn to you for help. You can be skilled, reliable, and competent and it still wouldn’t matter if people are conscious about interacting with you. If you’re someone that people can like and trust outside of the workplace, chances are, they will also want to seek your help at work as well.
6.) Pay Attention to Workplace Dynamics
Paying attention to how the people in your workplace behave and interact with each other is a critical part of becoming indispensable. Being mindful of workplace dynamics allows you to identify which individuals and teams need your help the most. More importantly, it will also make it easier to choose which people to help. After all, there is little point in offering assistance to people that you know for sure won’t accept or appreciate it.
If you’re not so sure, ask your coworkers if they need assistance with their projects, if you have time to spare. You can also take time to study organizational charts to see the official hierarchies and relationships between different members of your organization.
7.) Be Openly Appreciative of Others
No one likes an ingrate—least of all, an ambitious one. It’s important to show genuine appreciation for team members, superiors, and subordinates whenever it’s warranted. Even just having a genuinely positive attitude about everyone’s output may help them know that you understand the issues they face at work. In turn, they may be more likely to ask for your help when the time comes.
8.) Be a Good Communicator
A lot of highly competent individuals are ultimately hampered in their professional development because of an ineffective communication style. Unfortunately, there is no surefire way to be an effective communicator that works for all settings and cultures.
However, by carefully studying your workplace dynamics and being deliberate with how you talk to different team members, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the one person everyone trusts and looks up to. When this happens, you may even be in a position to be a thought leader, which means you may be trusted to guide your organization’s policies and direction, irrespective of your title and position.
9.) Keep Your Options Open
In the end, no one is truly indispensable. It is common for decision-makers at organizations to be short-sighted, unappreciative, impulsive, or just naive when it comes to the handling of valuable employees. Additionally, bad luck can happen, which can put an end to positive perceptions of your value.
For this reason, it is always best to keep reinvesting in your skills and current industry knowledge. This way, even if you are not seen as indispensable by the organization you’re currently a part of, you can still be seen as a valuable potential asset by others.
The great thing about Singapore is the wealth of self-improvement opportunities available to seasoned professionals. Certificate courses such as the SkillsFuture Series are a highly -accessible and affordable way of developing your professional knowledge.