Being an ‘indispensable worker’ is perhaps the most desired title in any workplace. When you are perceived as someone whose absence compromises the functioning of the entire department or organization, you will undoubtedly enjoy numerous benefits. Apart from the obvious job security, you will always be considered highly for promotions and pay raises, and the management will often go beyond their normal ways to satisfy you for fear of losing you. What’s more? Your motivation and self-esteem will be off the charts, and you will most-likely be feeling so darn good.
The best part is that this informal title is something that seems to have little connection to your position in the organisation hierarchy, and almost any employee can work their way to become indispensable. So gear up and follow these 5 tips to make yourself indispensable at work:
1. Hard work: As basic and obvious as it might seem, know that consistent hard-work never goes unnoticed in the workplace. Sooner or later, your bosses and co-workers will notice and value your diligence, and in turn value you. Being lackadaisical and lazy will raise concerns regarding you, no matter how skilled you may be at your work.
2. Take up important and challenging tasks: Although hard work is commendable it isn’t enough to make you indispensable. Focus on doing what is actually important for the company or your department, and be willing to take on tasks that are challenging- those that most don’t want to do. Simply working hard at the easiest of tasks that many others can/will do, will not make you distinguishable.
3. Take initiative and do extra: To be extraordinary you need to ‘do extra’. Try to do more than just what is assigned to you. If you are asked to perform a task, try to find ways to do it better, or come up with solutions for problems associated with the task. Your extra input might be ignored the first few times, but your initiative to continually do more will eventually set you apart from the workforce. You might also just come up with something instrumental to the company, thereby setting you up for being indispensable. However, be careful not to implement actions that might actually do more harm than good to the company.
4. Groom necessary skills and be the expert: Another aspect of being indispensable is to be the ‘go to person’ for a certain task. Groom your skills so that you are distinguishably the best person to perform your work. You could also learn and incorporate other skills that are related to your work, so that you can perform a variety of tasks individually, which would otherwise require more people. For instance, a web designer could learn HTML, JavaScript, JQuery, CSS etc. to be able to do the job of a web developer. Although the said example is quite a difficult thing to achieve, the idea is that if you are individually able to do work that normally requires more than one people, you are likely to be more indispensable.
5. Positive Personality: Lastly, incorporating the above tasks would obviously make you an exceptional employee, but it might amount to nothing if nobody likes you. You might be invaluable to an organization, but if you spread negative vibes in the workplace and disrupt the productivity of others, you might not be so desirable to the management. Hence, whatever you do, be mannerly and helpful to make good relations in the workplace, as your personality also plays a huge part in determining your dispensability.
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