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4 Ways To Make Yourself Indispensable To Your Employer No Matter What The
Economy
By Arthur Cooper
(c) Copyright 2004
In difficult economic
times everyone is potentially subject to
being "downsized" or "outplaced" –
what in less
politically correct (mealy mouthed?) days used to be called
redundancy.
For some people unhappy with their work this can present a
golden opportunity, and also the push necessary to go and do what they would
really like. This is especially true if they receive a decent financial
pay-off. Many will say (with hindsight) that it was the best thing that ever
happened to them.
However, for the majority of workers redundancy is
something to be feared and avoided. It can happen at the wrong time, without
warning, and without much of a financial buffer.
So how to you avoid
it happening to you?
Here are 4 suggestions to help you make yourself
indispensable to your employer, so that the company needs you more than you
need it.
1. Become an expert
Become an expert in some
essential field of activity. Become THE expert. Get yourself known as the
first and obvious person to turn to on anything to do with your chosen
subject. Read all you can about the subject. Speak on the subject whenever
you are given the chance, at meetings and in presentations. Publish internal
reports, making sure that the circulation list includes the top management.
Make sure that your subject is essential to the company – to its
manufacturing process, to its sales methods, to its essential
competitive edge, to its debt collection. Whatever it is, make sure that
you are widely accepted as THE expert.
2. Build your contacts
In
a way this is related to the preceding point. You must get to know who needs
your expertise and you must make sure that they know that you are the
expert. The better contacts you have and the more informal they are, the
better position you will be in.
But contacts are important too for the
information they can give to you. If you are faced with a problem you should
know straight away whom to contact. Without wasting time you can go straight
to the source of the knowledge and return with the solution. In this case
you are not the expert, but you know who is. You don't have to be the
expert, but you can always find the solution. You become a vital asset
to a company. A man with the answers.
3. Remember the
past.
During your time at the company take note of what happens. File it
away mentally or in writing. Remember the methods that have worked and
remember the methods that have failed. See WHY they have worked or have
failed and learn. Learn from other people's mistakes and don't make them
yourself. In this way become a source of wise and reliable advice. Become
someone who is listened to, someone whom others turn to. In other words
become a steadying influence when times become hard and people start to
panic.
4. See the whole picture
Look at the company as a whole.
Don't get immersed so much in your own narrow field that you fail to see
the complete picture. Understand what is going on in the world at large.
Understand the events that influence your own company's performance in
the market place. Understand the pressures under which the top management
is working. Anticipate what will be needed. Anticipate the changes that
will inevitably have to be made. Be an active player in those changes,
not a passive object swept up by them.
In all of this the essential
point is that you must be of real and
genuine value to your company.
Downturns will come. Business will ebb and flow. This is what happens in the
real world. And if the moment arises when some of the employees have to go
make sure that your company simply cannot afford to let you be one of
them.
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Arthur Cooper is a freelance writer and publisher.
For more articles visit:
http://www.barrel-publishing.com/
Send a blank email to bettermanagement@getresponse.com for a free four
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