How to Improve Your Job Security
Job security is an especially hot topic right now and during other times of economic uncertainty. I was talking to a friend this weekend and we discussed the importance of being indispensable at work to maintain job security as well as to ensure ongoing growth within an organization. Being indispensable is a good strategy in times of growth and prosperity as well as during tough economic times. It is a good to thing to consider both for those who are employed as well as people looking for jobs.
Board and CEO level mandates to cut costs can suddenly put people at risk who might otherwise feel a sense of safety. I’ve personally seen it multiple times in corporate America. Cuts to meet a high-level target that led to significant job losses. Cuts due to negative growth in a company’s customer base. Cuts based on a previously unspecified billable hours threshold leading to the elimination of consultants on major corporate projects (but of course there was budget for a lavish boat cruise).
In good times and especially in a challenging economic climate, it’s critical to do what you can to make yourself indispensable to your team and organization. One litmus test to gauge your indispensability is by assessing how well your team, company, or client performs in your absence when you are on vacation.
Below are a few tips to increase your job security by becoming indispensable at work.
6 TIPS TO IMPROVE JOB SECURITY
1. Become a Revenue Driver
The best way to be indispensable is to be a driver of revenue for your company. This is a given for all sales-focused roles, but other people can find ways to directly or indirectly support increasing your company’s top-line revenue growth. Marketers can look beyond simple top of funnel marketing metrics and take ownership of the entire sales and marketing funnel to ensure they are driving real sales. Customer service reps and account managers are well positioned not to just serve customer needs but can play a critical role in driving incremental revenue via up-sells and cross-sells as well as helping to reduce customer churn. Really, anyone in a customer facing role can help indirectly drive revenue by sharing customer insights, feedback, and other qualitative data to leaders in the organization. Many great ideas come from the folks who regularly interact with customers, not just leaders sitting in executive offices. Internally focused employees can also support revenue growth by sharing new innovations and insights with the marketing department and front-line sales personnel.
2. Become a Cost Cutting Zealot
Finding ways to cut costs is another way to provide ongoing value to your organization. Reducing costs, while not as sexy as finding new growth opportunities, has an equally powerful impact on company profitability. Find ways to cut costs by reducing the use of raw materials or other inputs, negotiating lower costs from suppliers, streamlining processes to reduce operating costs, and other methods to strip out costs from your organization. Doing so boosts company profitability and also shows that you care about the success of the organization overall.
3. Go Above and Beyond the Job Description
The best and most irreplaceable employees are not just focused on delivering on what is in their job description, but find ways to help out the company in other ways. One great way to get started is to volunteer to help out on a new strategic growth initiative that is headed up by another team in your company. There are always cross-functional initiatives that are understaffed, so jump right in and volunteer. If you don’t know where to start, offer your time and effort to leaders within your organization. One word of caution. Be authentic in offering to help and do so to help the company thrive, not just for personal gain.
4. Go Over the Top to Service Customers
Another way to become indispensable is to constantly find ways to delight your customers. Go out of your way to be helpful to customers and proactively reach out to check-in and see if there are other ways you can help. Happy customers lead to a higher customer lifetime value, lower churn, and sales growth via referrals. Being customer centric and an ally to customers, regardless of your role, will provide immense value to your customers as well as to the organization overall. If you aren’t in a customer facing role, offer your help to others in your organization who are and find ways to improve the customer experience.
5. Network Internally
Most people understand the value of networking outside of their organizations, but often forget about the criticality of building and nurturing relationships internally. Perhaps you and your team throw a birthday party for your boss, but are you intentional about building relationships up, down, and laterally within your organization? Be authentic and don’t be the person who only looks upward, but consider your peers and direct reports. Ask yourself, “How can I be of service to him or her?” and “What do I have to offer to each person?” It could be access to new insights and articles, experience gained from previous roles, or even making introductions that are in service of your colleagues’ goals. As friend and mentor Keith Ferrazzi espouses, lead with generosity and find ways to help others.
6. Commit to Lifelong Learning
Employees who are constantly growing and developing are those who perform better within their roles and also are well positioned for promotions that emerge. They also become immense assets to companies as they can better adapt to new roles and responsibilities as companies evolve in response to change. To get started, add learning goals to your annual and quarterly goal setting process. If you are mid-cycle, make a commitment to learn one new thing in the next month. There are a wealth of resources available such as LinkedIn Learning courses, online certifications, leadership books and leadership videos, and of course an array of free content on social media. You can take it even one step further by sharing what you have learned with your team or broadly across the organization; send an email with links to a research report or offer to host a “lunch and learn” to share what you have learned.
Take Action to Ensure You are Irreplaceable
In an uncertain economy, be sure you do what you can to be irreplaceable and help improve your job security. It’s always a good approach to be a critical cog in a company’s economic engine in good times and bad to boost your job security and also help you perform better in your role and develop further in your career. Commit to taking action today to ensure you are irreplaceable so that you can maintain job security and land promotions that arise within your team and company.