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11 LOGICAL WAYS TO SKYROCKET YOUR VISIBILITY WHEN WORKING-FROM-HOME

December 19, 2020

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The remote work revolution has been greasing its gears for a while now. Even before the pandemic thrust it into the status-quo, employees around the globe were advocating for a change. After all, work-from-home absolves employees from the tiresome commute and enhances better work-life balance while upholding job autonomy and productivity. 

However, remote work comes with a unique set of challenges. An office-wide lack of visibility is one such challenge. In contrast with a traditional brick-and-mortar office environment, remote work doesn’t foster a workspace where employees physically sit next to each other. Thus, it’s a task for employees to make themselves visible to the management as well to their peers when working from home.

To counter this problem, here’s a list of 11 straightforward measures that you can take to stay visible without breaking a sweat: –

Adopt a proactive approach

Work-from-home is uncharted territory for most organizations and acclimatizing to this sudden transition has given rise to a lot of uncertainty. Thus, it only makes sense that your day-to-day roles may not be as thoroughly defined as before. To combat this, you must adopt a proactive approach to work. Don’t wait for your team-manager to build a roadmap for you. Instead, pull your weight by staying on top of everything relevant to your department. Assess your suitability for unassigned tasks and step up whenever necessary.

Volunteer to represent your department at meetings

In a remote office environment, video conferencing apps make up for the absence of physical conference rooms. Thus, office-meetings can go on as usual even when you’re working from home. Granted that both experiences are not the same, your department/team will still need representation during interdepartmental interactions. To increase your visibility, you take up the responsibility of representing your department in various meetings. Doing so will signal that you’re committed to the growth of your organization. 

Introspect for deficiencies in your skill-level

Voluntary learning is part of being an effective employee. However, working professionals need not undertake theoretical courses for months at a stretch. Instead, they can simply learn by doing. So, if you’ve identified gaps in your skillset, affirm the same to your team manager. Ask them to provide you with relevant assignments. 

Stay informed on industry trends and developments

When you’re working from home, you’re restricted to a confined space. However, your mind is free to discover new horizons and expand in effective ways. Given how new and interesting industry-specific developments are not curbed even in the face of a pandemic, you’re free to venture into unique intellectual realms. Moreover, there’s never a bad time to research your competition and brainstorm ways to improve your position in the market. In simple words, observe the ebb and flow of your industry and try to use your insights to your company’s advantage. 

Initiate knowledge-sharing meetings 

Sharing informative tidbits with your organization can foster team-building and bring everyone on the same page. For instance, you can organize mindfulness sessions where you take your whole team through a guided meditation. You can also share new and improved ways of performing boilerplate tasks like creating a PPT, organizing a spreadsheet, or supplementing documentation. 

Ensure participation across the board

Team-building exercises and knowledge-sharing events are great on paper. However, if they don’t inspire a strong attendance, they fail to make the intended impact. Thus, take it upon yourself to disseminate information about such events to all stakeholders. Use creative invitations to encourage company-wide participation. Identify topics that interest everyone in the organization and set up events accordingly. 

Learn new job-related skills on your own

There’s a lot that you can learn by diligently throwing yourself into new assignments. However, conceptual and theoretical learning is just as important to make you a well-rounded employee. Moreover, you can inspire others to follow suit and increase the overall efficacy of the workforce. In a nutshell, learning new job-related skills not only helps increase your visibility but also propels your peers to become better employees. 

Make sure you attend key virtual events

Going remote doesn’t mean that your organization will stop its long-standing traditions. For example, an e-annual day is just as important as a traditional annual day. So, make sure that you become a part of such celebrations and express solidarity with your peers and managers. 

Prioritize output, not mere activity

Irrespective of your mode of operation, it is important to achieve measurable milestones that contribute to your company’s growth. Thus, you should focus on achieving relevant goals instead of clocking out after a set timeframe. Since remote workers cannot be monitored all the time, make sure that you act ethically and efficiently. 

Leverage ‘real’ visibility whenever possible

Even though audio-only meetings get the job done, they only contribute to the visibility-debt that comes with working outside of a physical setup. Since you’re not seeing your peers on a day-to-day basis, you’re susceptible to treating them like cogs in a machine instead of human contributors to your company’s cause. So, it’s important to organize video-enabled meetings from time-to-time to foster holistic interactions across the workforce. In fact, consider onboarding new clients in a video-enabled setup. Let them ‘see’ the person behind the transaction. 

Make your voice heard

When working from home, it’s important to let go of your inhibitions about sharing new ideas, insights, and general updates. As a rule of thumb, choose over-communicating over under-communicating. By being vocal with your ideas, you may also inspire the same in the rest of the workforce. Consequently, you’ll make a pivotal contribution to facilitating a deeply collaborative remote-work environment. 

To sum things up, remote-work can end up being what you make of it. It can either be a perfect excuse to fade into the shadows or it can be a great opportunity to cement your presence in your organization. So, choose wisely!

This article was originally published on Kelly Services blog 


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