Five Ways to Get Noticed at Work

1.     Be the best- if you have the best productivity and quality on your team, your manager cannot help but notice this. You will be talked about in manager meetings and marked as ‘one to watch’ (in a positive way!)

2.    Apply for promotions and impress in the interview. This is a really good way to get noticed as you have a captive audience made up of the people who can positively influence your career path.

3.   Take an active part in team meetings. Meetings are a great opportunity for you to demonstrate your knowledge and show that you have the ability to think critically about how your team works. Make sure, though, that you really know what you’re talking about otherwise the only reputation you’ll get is as someone who likes the sound of their own voice!

4.   Volunteer for projects. Sometimes (how often depends on the type and size of your employer) there will be opportunities to become involved in projects such as Lean Six Sigma initiatives or testing software upgrades. By volunteering, you show that you’re engaged with the business and as long as you do a good job your stock will certainly rise.

5.    Improve a process – as you gain experience, you’ll notice that you find ways of doing the job better. As long as you don’t work at a company with a ‘well that’s the way we’ve always done this’ mindset, sharing better ways of doing things are a great way to get on the map.

Other Things You Need to Know About Managing People

Hi everyone, hope you’re looking forward to a great week! Last time, I talked about the steps you need to take to become a Team Leader. On the way, there are a number of things you need to get comfortable with. Once your manager feels you’re ready to progress, they’ll be able to help you along. Some of the key considerations are:

1.       Having difficult conversations. This can range from saying ‘no’ to a holiday request to giving someone a final warning regarding their conduct which will lead to them being fired if no improvement and then firing them. If you’re not 100% comfortable doing this and everything in between, you may not be cut out to manage people and that’s fine – there are plenty of other ways to progress and you may feel more ready later on.

2.       Dealing with difficult customers in Customer Service environments – if you allow the kind of unreasonable customer who tries to get the better of you on the phone when they’re in the wrong or threatens to get you fired for doing your job correctly to ruin your day you may not be best suited to this kind of role. Again, that’s perfectly okay.

3.       Being able to interpret and act on Management Information (MI). As a Team Leader, a big part of your job is dealing with facts and figures that show how your team is doing. You’ll need to identify what areas need improvement, report this (sometimes) to your manager and take action (potentially involving difficult conversations). An example of this is a colleague who is often late. Before taking any action against them, you’ll need to gather evidence of the lateness.

4.       Dealing with different stakeholders. A stakeholder is anyone who is affected by whatever you’re working on. As a Team Leader, you may be asked to work on projects where you’ll need to think more deeply about the impact of what you’re doing and draw on the knowledge of experts from other departments. It’s essential to deal with all kinds of people (who will be senior to you in many cases) to ensure a successful outcome.

I hope this gives a more detailed idea of the skills you’ll need to progress. To ensure you don’t miss out, be sure to press the ‘Subscribe’ button or enter your email address on the left side of the page and press ‘Get Email Notification’. Thanks for reading and see you next time!

On the Job: How to Get Ahead in the Workplace

Last time we talked about how to make the most of your time training. Assuming you did all that, your next job is to do…nothing. ‘NOTHING?’ I hear you say? Well, not quite nothing but the first thing to do is to get on with doing the work you were trained to do to the best of your ability and doing plenty of it.

The trick is not to try too hard to get noticed. In his book ‘An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth’ the Canadian Former Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield talks about the idea of being a ‘zero’, a ‘one’ or a ‘two’. At this stage, you want to be a 'zero' by working as shown in the previous paragraph. Once you gain experience, you’ll become a ‘one’ and with effort eventually a ‘two’, by which time you’ll be ready to lead a team. Try to be a ‘one’ or a ‘two’ too soon and you’ll be noticed for all the wrong reasons and become a ‘minus one’.

So, you’ve been a ‘zero’ for a while and your quality and productivity scores have consistently been good. How to become a ‘one’? To start with, you’ll want to take advantage of any extra training that is available to you. You should have monthly review meetings with your manager where you should identify any areas for improvement (hint: if you can’t think of any, you’re probably not ready to become a ‘one’.) Having the correct attitude to criticism is essential – if you struggle to accept constructive criticism, you’re probably not ready to become a ‘one’.

Assuming you now consider yourself a ‘one’, you should expect to receive more complex work and your manager may well get you to deputise for them – I was assigned to cover for my manager when he was unwell and to help with job interviews – firstly taking notes and then being the one asking the questions. At this stage, you’ll also get to know people in other business areas who work alongside yours. If you’ve gotten this far, you’ll be ready to be a ‘two’ and will want to start thinking about promotion.

From start to finish, I’d say this can be done in about 18 months

At this point, it’s important to think about whether you’re truly comfortable with this idea of managing people – if you’re not, you may need more time to get comfortable. If you really don’t like the idea, don’t worry – all employers have specialist roles into which you’ll be promoted without having to manage people. If you want to go down this road (which is perfectly valid) your manager should be able to help you.

For those of you who have read this far 😊 thanks – I hope this post has been helpful. If you like it, please click the ‘subscribe’ button so you don’t miss future updates. I post every Monday and most weekends. Thank you and see you next time! 

Learn the Job: How to Get the Most Out of Training

So, you’ve got the job, you’ve met your manager and you’re in the building. Now it’s time to learn the job.

Most of the time, you’ll be trained in a dedicated training room using computer systems set up so that when (not if) you make a mistake, there’s no real impact other than the positive learning experience that should follow a mistake – more on that later.

When you start training, you’ll often be issued with one or more training guides. Employers can be touchy about people removing this material from the office so if you want to get ahead and do some homework it’s important to check you’re allowed to take it home. Getting this wrong can cost you your job – it’s taken that seriously.

The single most important thing to do when training is to focus – this means listening when the trainer is talking and not allowing other colleagues’ conversations to distract you when you’re working on the computer.

Another really important thing to realise is that any mistake you make is in the past and can’t be undone. The only thing you can do is learn from the experience so you only make the mistake once.

At the end of training, you’ll often be required to prove that you’re competent so you can be signed off to do live work. Sometimes there’ll be a test of some description while other times you’ll be asked to complete live work with a decreasing level of supervision as time goes by and you become more confident. The work you do will also be quality checked and you’ll only be allowed to work alone once your work has been assessed as good enough.

Once you’ve done all this, you can be very proud of yourself. Give yourself a pat on the back but don’t get complacent – this is when mistakes start creeping back in. If this happens, review the training material and make sure you pay real attention to what you’re doing. 

Thanks for reading and see you next time.