Become your company’s MVE – most valuable employee
By Mark Gonska
With the grim unemployment news splashed across the headlines, it is understandable that you may be concerned about losing your job.
According to Traci Bell-Thomas of the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services, “The unemployment claim systems in Ohio and other states buckled this week under an onslaught of telephone calls and website hits.
With the number of people being laid off at the end of the year, the systems are just being overwhelmed. The telephone hotline generally receives about 7,500 calls a day, but has been getting around 80,000 calls each the past two days (January 6, 2009).”
Business as usual isn’t.
So, what can you do, as an employee, to ease your anxiety and protect your position with your employer? Here are some tips to fireproof your current employment by working toward becoming your boss’s Most Valuable Employee:
Make an honest appraisal of your job situation
Do you get along well with your boss? What are you doing to make your workplace run better, faster and cheaper? Do you bring solutions or complaints to your boss and co-workers?
Make sure you are doing the best job you can be – and that you are the best employee you can be. Identify three improvements you can make at work and DO them.
You need to take action to make things better. Don’t wait. Waiters are for restaurants.
Put yourself in your employer’s shoes – and walk around
What is keeping your boss up at night? Find out. Have a discussion with your boss and find out what you can do to help in these tough times. Simply ask, “what’s the most important thing I can do to help our business in these tough times? What can I do to make things better for you?”
Ask, “What do you see that’s working – that I should CONTINUE to do? What’s not happening that I should START DOING and what’s really bugging you that I should STOP doing?
Take immediate action on your employer’s recommendations.
Let your yes be yes
Deliver what you promise. Don’t wait to be reminded – you need to bring solutions, not problems and complaints.
If you make a promise, you need to follow through on that promise. Is your plate already full? Clarify your priorities and determine what is most important to you.
What should you purposefully neglect to get this done? We all need to make sacrifices right now – and you might have to say “yes” more often.
You now have several tools in your tool belt to help you keep your job. Act on your fear about losing your job and use that energy to fireproof your job.
Go into work each day and focus on how you can be the best employee you can be.
Mark Gonska is Executive Vice President of Career Transition Services for Dise & Company. You can contact Mark directly at the People Page on Diseco.com
4 comments ↓
Shouldn’t we be doing this anyway? We should always ask “What can I do better (more efficiently, more effectively, cheaper…)? What can I be doing to make my organization more successful?”
My dad once told me two rules of staying employed: (1) make yourself indispensible, and (2) remember that no one is indispensible.
It’s also a perfect time to remember that many people with whom you work are under stress, and we would all benefit from a supportive, pleasant working environment. Step up and be willing to be the person who asks, “How was your weekend?”, and actually listen to the answer! Give a word of encouragement to a fellow employee, or thank someone for a job well done – large or small. My director has started giving each of us one of those small bite-sized chocolates at the end of a particularly tough day – along with a word of kindness, just to celebrate our team and a successful days’ work. It can still be great to be at work – even in tough times.
Good advice, to understand what one should start, stop and keep doing! In addition, find the latest technology that is relevant to your organization and become proficient at it. Do this even if it does not happen to pertain to your job at present, because someone in the organization is going to be looking for a super user of that technology soon. Be that person and you become indispensable. Of course, no one is indispensable so revise your resume, keep networking and be ready to make a move shoud it prove necessary.
Mark:
Good thoughts. Hope to see you Monday at Hudson Job Search.
Bob Madison
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