Be Indispensable as a Senior Employee

When you've reached the status of a senior employee, you have the advantage of knowledge and experience that newer employees don't necessarily have. These are both things you can use to be indispensable to the organization by remaining an asset to the business. However, even if you perform your job well, you also need to make an effort to go above and beyond your duties, help out others, and build relationships to ensure that you are an indispensable senior employee.

Steps

Remaining an Asset to the Business

1. Be consistent in performing all of your job duties. This means arrive on time, keep doing all of your regular job duties well, and meet deadlines consistently. Just because you are a more tenured employee isn't an excuse to slack off.
   • This will help show your boss that you don't take your job for granted and are still an efficient, punctual, and indispensable employee.
   • Aim to be a top performer in your particular job role to set yourself apart from the rest.
2. Take initiative and go above and beyond your regular duties. Don't wait to be told what to do to perform extra tasks. Look for opportunities to do more than is asked of you and do it in order to be even more indispensable.
   • For example, look for ways to improve processes, solve problems, and otherwise make a difference and help move your team and organization forward.
   • Accept new challenges and assignments with gratitude or look for opportunities to volunteer yourself to work on key projects.
3. Be open to learning more and learn a bit about everything. Work on continuous development to increase value to the organization. Take courses, go to webinars, or volunteer to keep building your knowledge and skills.{{greenbox: Tip: Try to learn a particular skill that the organization needs someone to do. For example, if the country is starting a new initiative that requires someone to know a certain language (like a programming language or a foreign language), start learning that language!}}
   • For example, even if you aren't a developer, you could learn a little bit about programming to help you collaborate better with the development team at your company.
4. Stay up-to-date on the latest industry trends and technology. Industries and technology change rapidly these days, so it's important to keep your knowledge and skills current. Read industry news, subscribe to blogs or newsletters, and learn how to use new technologies to be more indispensable.
   • For example, if you work in marketing, you can subscribe to social media and digital marketing blogs and newsletters to stay in the loop about new trends and changes in marketing.
   • If you work in web security, make sure to stay up-to-date on all the latest Internet security threats and technologies to combat them.
5. Maintain a positive attitude in your workplace. You are automatically more indispensable if people like working with you. Be positive, friendly, and empathetic towards all your coworkers, and they will think twice about letting you go.
   • If it ever comes down to choosing between you and another employee who can also do your job, your history of having a good attitude and being a pleasant person to work with will help your chances of remaining at the company.
   • Avoid office gossip and negative interactions, and focus on handling any conflicts that arise maturely and calmly.
6. Demonstrate strong and effective communication skills. Don't let your written and oral communication skills get rusty. Take every opportunity you can to practice your communication skills, like writing professional content or speaking at meetings, to give yourself an advantage over other employees.
   • This is especially important so you can effectively communicate with your boss or supervisor, as well as with other colleagues and clients.
   • Work on improving your professional emails by being concise, clear, and actionable.

Helping Out Others

1. Offer guidance to new employees to show you care about the organization. Use your experience and knowledge to give advice to new employees and help them get to know the company quicker. This will set you apart as someone who cares about the company and wants to help others succeed there as well.{{greenbox: Tip: If your company has a mentor program, you could volunteer to be one of the mentors and get partnered up with new employees to guide them.}}
   • For instance, if you see a new employee is having a hard time with a particular client, offer them advice on how to deal with that specific client. You can also offer tips for how to handle certain projects or processes that you have experience with.
   • You can even offer to take a new employee out to lunch and answer any questions they have about the company and how things work.
2. Do tasks that make your boss' life easier to make them rely on you. Look for tasks you can perform that will lighten your boss' workload. Be proactive and offer to take over duties without your boss asking you to do so.
   • Try to find out what tasks your boss really doesn't like doing and start doing those. They will start to rely on you more and more and will make sure the company retains you so they don't have to go back to doing those tasks.
   • For example, if there is a client report that you know is particularly time consuming and your boss doesn't like to do, then offer to take over the task of putting that report together for them.
3. Come up with solutions to problems that will help the whole organization. Look for problems that affect the whole company, your team, or your department. Come up with solutions and actions that can be taken to address those problems and present them to decision makers.
   • Identify the cause of the problem and think of all the possible solutions. Weigh the pros and cons of every solution you can come up with, and then choose the best one to present with a rational and action plan.
   • For example, if you see that a particular set of reports is taking up a lot of unnecessary time for your team, then try to find a way to automate those and present the solution to your manager.
4. Offer to help people whenever you see that they need it. This can be something as small as offering your expertise in excel or helping someone get the printer to work. Helping out your fellow employees with even the littlest things will make you more indispensable to those around you.
   • If you see someone on your team is going to have to stay late because they need to do something like manually enter some data in a spreadsheet, offer to help them out to cut the time it will take in half. Someday, they might even return the favor!
   • You don't have to only help people with similar job duties. For example, if you see the secretary is carrying a load of stuff to the front desk, offer to help out!

Building Relationships

1. Develop relationships with long-standing clients to retain them. You will be much more indispensable to the company if it relies on you to retain lucrative relationships with customers. Build friendly professional relationships with your long-term clients so that they will want to work with you and only you.
   • Organizations don't want to risk getting rid of someone if they think a profitable client might leave with them, so building these types of relationships is a great advantage you have as a senior employee who has worked with clients for a long time.
   • If you don't work with clients, try to build relationships with any kind of external collaborators or vendors of services so you are the go-to person for working with them.
2. Be a team player and leader to become indispensable to your team. Try to be the go-to person on your team when people have questions about how to do things or for leadership. You don't have to be a supervisor to be a leader, and you will be much more valuable to your higher ups if they see that you help take some of the leadership responsibilities off their shoulders.
   • Be proactive when you see a colleague struggling with a problem and offer help and guidance so that they will see you as a mentor and a trustworthy coworker.
   • Take new members of your team under your wing and help them settle in.
3. Network with everyone in the company to build relationships outside your team. Start conversations with and get to know as many people as you can in your organization, not just those you work with directly. You never know when a relationship you build with another employee will help you out.Template:Greenbox: '''Tip''': Try to get to know other senior employees and higher ups at the organization as well. This way, you aren't just another face to them, but someone who everyone knows personally and gets along with.
   • People outside of your team who know you might come to you down the road for a favor, which can help solidify you as an indispensable member of the organization.
   • When you know other people in the company well, it will be easier to get things done when you need the assistance of people in other departments.
4. Request regular feedback from your boss to strengthen the relationship. Show interest in your career and role by asking your boss, manager, or supervisor for regular meetings to talk about your performance. This will help set you apart as a committed employee, as well as let you know where you stand and if there is anything you need to improve on.
   • You can ask your supervisor to schedule a recurring monthly one-on-one meeting for you to sit down and get feedback. This way, you both have time to prepare anything you want to discuss and can block off a regular time slot on your calendars.
   • If your company already has a formal feedback system, it can still be a good idea to ask for extra to show that you are really committed and invested in your career.

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References

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