are you invisible at your workplace?
Change it in 3 steps!
Talk about your work in a clear and structured way, and learn to put it on the stage of the organizational workflow.
Help others be more visible by asking the right questions, to build transparent work relationships.
WHY DO YOU FEEL INVISIBLE?
You show up every day. You do the work. You solve problems, support others, keep things moving and you really do your best. Still, you feel nobody sees what you are doing here. How much you are doing here. How well you are doing your job. How much value you contribute to the organization, how much you bring to the table. So at the end of the day you go home feeling invisible and maybe thinking about changing jobs.
This feeling is more common than you think. In the Forbes article 5 Ways To Prevent ‘The Invisible Employee’ From Harming the Workplace, Bryan Robinson introduces the term “the invisible employee”. In his words, an invisible employee is
“someone whose contributions go unnoticed, whose role is misunderstood or undervalued, and who struggles to articulate the impact of their work within the organization.”
Employee invisibility is a well-documented, valid phenomenon, which severely impacts the productivity of an organization. Let’s face it, visibility is no longer a nice-to-have. In many organizations, it’s becoming a soft KPI, your work should not only be done, but it should be understood, traceable, and connected to results.
Outstanding and spectacular results are easily visible. If you reach 30% savings, bring in a huge order, or finish a project successfully, they natuarally speak for themselves. However, most of our actual daily work will remain absolutely invisible in the complex workflow of a modern organization if we don’t learn to talk about them in the right way. You may think it shouldn’t be like this, and sometimes even take it personally, but that’s just the way it is in a complex workflow.
The good news is, you don’t need to be loud and bragging about your achievements or pushing yourself in the centre of attention to be more visible. Although more extroverted personalities may find visibility easier, my experience is that visibility can be hard to do well. It may be too much or it may interfere with others’s visibility, time and boundaries, it may even annoy others. Because
actions speak louder than words, we need only a few professionally chosen words at the right
time, to be visible.
YOU CAN LEARN VISIBILITY
Communication for visibility is precisely targeted, effective,
and respects other employees’ visibility, time and boundaries.
STEP 1
LEARN TO TALK ABOUT YOUR WORK ACTIVITIES
If you want to improve your visibility, you will only learn to speak about your work activities in an effective way. First, you need to clearly and systemically see what your actual work activities are and why you are doing them. If you clearly see your system, you will be able to show it to others as well.
Here, at English on the Job, the course Working at a multinational company will help you improve your visibility on the global stage of your work.
START STEP 1
Learn to talk professionally about theactual work at your workplace. Learn to talk to your boss, colleagues, other departments and authorities about the real work that is done. At the end of the course, a comprehensive project will help you test what you have learnt and also to prepare you for actually using that knowledge on the job at work as early as the next day.
- With authentic pronunciation
- With solutions and hint
- Access granted for 20 weeks
STEP 2
RECOGNIZE OPPORTUNITIES FOR VISIBILITY
If you want your work to be visible, you don’t have to work more or brag about your work. All you need to do is recognize the opportunities to link your work to the “big picture”, to the organizational goals or to specific colleagues’ work efforts.
For example, when you report about your tasks in a meeting or to your leader, don’t just list the activities that you did. I know you don’t want to be in the limelight for too long, and it is really the easiest way to quickly get back to your desk during a hard day. But even if you have no special results or achievements, just actually did the task, even then you can make it visible.
Apply these 4 ways when you report:
| Show the result: | Here’s what I did, and here’s how it helped the organization. |
| Show the goal: | Here’s what I did and here’s the goal that I completed with it. |
| Show the reason: | Here’s what I did and here’s the reason why it was a good idea. |
| Show the detail: | Here’s what I did and here are the details that may be useful for you. |
FOR EXAMPLE:
| Instead of saying only: | „I cleaned up the database.” |
| Add the result, too, and say: | „I have good news, I have cleaned up 60% of the redundant items in the database, and I will be completely done by the end of the week.” or “I have cleaned up the database. It’s not a spectacular improvement, but it helps the sales team act faster.” |
| Instead of saying only: | „The update is working now.” |
| Show the detail that connects the job to the others’ work and say: | „I was struggling with this update, but now it is working. If you also run into this issue, I’m happy to help you fix it.” |
| Instead of saying only: | „Done.” |
| Add the result, too, and say: | “Done. This should help the team spot issues faster next time.” |
STEP 3
Give others opportinities for visibility
Visibility is never a one-way street.
Your work will be appreciated and valued if you truly value others’ work and efforts. Ask others meaningful questions about their results, invite them to know more about your work.
FOR EXAMPLE:
“If you want to understand it better, I am happy to share more.”
“If you think it would help you see more more of how I do it, just let me know.”
“Do you think it will be understandable for the others as well?”
“You mentioned that you struggled with the update. What were the issues that others should also see to learn from it?”
“What helped you finally figure out how the update will work?”
“Is there something I can do to help you struggle less next time?”
START STEPS 2 AND 3
To help you find the right opportunities to improve your own and your colleagues’ visibility, I have turned the above expressions and more into a free tutorial for you.
How to have access?
If you are already a member, click on “START TUTORIAL” below to “buy” it for exactly ZERO Hungarian forints (HUF 0). After registration put it in your basket, click place the order and that’s it. You do not need to actually pay. After that, you will find it in My Learning Platform, where you can have lifetime access to it.