How to Make Yourself Indispensable at Work

Imagine! In the space of just one weekend last March, our world turned upside down. One moment you thought yourself part of a team, indispensable at work, and the next you felt yourself entirely dispensable. One minute you feel secure in your job, the next you’re waving goodbye to friends and colleagues. Then that thought arises, “could I be next?” And then that next thought: what can I do to make sure I am not next? The answer is: You must make yourself indispensable in whatever position you currently hold and do it now! Think about it.

Whatever the position, employees who make themselves indispensable at work will soon become exactly that: INDISPENSABLE. Better still is the probability that an indispensable employee would be in line for advancement and promotion when a suitable opportunity arises. Believe it or not, there are people who snagged themselves a promotion in the middle of the pandemic. They’re among those indispensable employees, those who already know the five keys to career indispensability. More on those further down this page.  

Professional Rescue is at Hand

Normality might seem like an eternity ago. Nevertheless, with help, in the form of vaccines, on the horizon, we are all being urged not to slacken in our resolve. We’re prompted to stay the course through to what, everyone hopes, will be our salvation.

Here’s hoping! Now let’s get back to making you into an indispensable employee. 

Getting Back to Being indispensable 

In the meantime, what can you do to prepare yourself for the – post pandemic – life, we all hope, is just around the corner, again? Life back on the job, instead of working remotely. How can we begin our journey back to indispensability and becoming, once again, a team member? Hint: there’s more to it than your skills.

Here’s five keys to focus upon :

1. Make your manager’s job easier. Give some thought to whether there are gaps in your immediate boss’s skill set. Make it your job to fill these gaps and help your boss shine. There is no better tactic than increasing your influence with your immediate manager.
2. Become an expert in your niche. Is there a particular task which your department frequently struggles to deliver on? If there is, then make it your mission to become the person who can get this done. This can become your unique selling point and, if you’ve really done your homework, can make you indispensable. In short make yourself the go-to-person for at least one important deliverable in your department.
3. Be generous with your knowledge.  Establishing areas of expertise at work is definitely the royal road to making you indispensable. Being generous with your knowledge and making yourself a goal to training resource within the company is what gets you noticed. Don’t be miserly with your knowledge, make time for others and make sure you help at least one co-worker fill their gap in skills. 
4. Work on high visibility projects. An often overlooked way of gaining massive leverage at work is to volunteer for high value and high visibility projects. It can be very tempting to duck these opportunities, don’t.  Of course, you must make sure that you do good work on these projects and that your contributions are useful. Being the person to step up gets you noticed, and gets you credit, both essentials when your quest is indispensability. 
5. Offer solutions. Your boss doesn’t want problems they want solutions. Most of your colleagues make themselves almost indistinguishable from one another because of their habit of bringing problems to their managers. Do not be one of those people. Make an inventory of the top three pain points in your department and pick one that you are going to solve or improve. Bring your solution to your boss, they’ll remember you for it.

What if You’ve Already Been Let Go by your Employer?

One smart thing you should do would be to contemplate this next question…a question that must cross the minds of many job applicants.

The question is: How can I find permanent employment again?

Well, there’s comforting advice to be found in the answer. It is:

1. Check out our Job Board to see if we have something live there for you
2. Send your CV to us at Hall Recruitment. Tell us what you’re good at, and then tell us what you would like to do next. 

Since Covid-19 first arrived amongst us, we in Hall Recruitment have been busily at work and we’re eager to help you get off the pandemic payment and back into the workforce.

Let’s Us Make Ourselves indispensable to You

Identified as an essential service under Government guidelines, we’ve been in our office, manning phones, taking calls, and pressing all the buttons to represent our valued clients and to advance the careers of our candidates.

We’ve identified avenues and areas in which we can bring added value to both candidates and our clients, their potential employers. Our work continues! We are here for you and look forward to hearing from you.

But are we indispensable? We may think so, but only you can say whether we are, or not.