Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Stand Out: Get Recognized

Recognition in the workplace often comes from being your own advocate, especially if you have a manager who isn’t particularly great at recognizing team accomplishments. And typically, co-workers are too busy vying to catch the attention and recognition of their own managers to take notice and recognize your work. In other cases, your manager and others simply haven't been made aware of your accomplishments.

You can tactfully champion your own accomplishments and get the recognition you deserve by acting on the following tips:

Build a mutually respectful and professional relationship with your manager: Communicate regular project/task status updates to your manager using a preferred channel of communication (e.g. meetings, reports, emails, etc.). Find opportunities for brief and informal face-to-face interactions, which may be as simple as stopping by his/her office to say hello. Being visible helps keep you top-of-mind with your manager.

Report out: When you reach a milestone with a project or have a new idea or solution to a problem, share it with pertinent co-workers and management via email. When possible, quantify the benefits.

Contribute ideas and volunteer for new tasks: Share your ideas and opinions and be willing to take on new tasks. By doing so, your co-workers and management will see you as a contributor and a team player.

Track and record accomplishments: It is easy to get busy with daily tasks at work and lose track of your accomplishments. Take a few minutes each week to write a note highlighting some of the key achievements. Record, date stamp, and keep your accomplishments noted in a file you can later reference for preparing for a performance review or updating your resume.

Take pride and credit: Be proud of your work, whether it's recognized by others or not. And when your work is being referenced in your presence, be confident and comfortable about taking credit for it, but in a tactful way.

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