Five Steps to Becoming a Valuable Employee

Everyone wants to be viewed as a valuable employee. Those new to the workforce often have little concept of the steps or behaviors that generate this perception. Even senior employees are sometimes prisoners of continued repetition, unable to consider their value to their employer. Both groups can improve their workplace experience and career by learning proven steps to reach this goal.

Who Defines “Value”?

Earning a valuable employee status is a combination of internal and external conditions. Just as being defined as a “senior employee” is a combination of age, experience, and expertise, the valuable employee designation is a melding of behavior, attitude, and perception.

The internal component relies on your understanding of your professional value to your employer and yourself. Typically a combination of self-respect, self-confidence, and thoughtful evaluation, your definition may or may not match your employer’s perception. When both entities agree, the workplace is usually a rewarding experience. When troubling discrepancies exist, you should consider a) improving your value, or b) seeking a new employer.

The external factor depends on your employer’s perception of your value to the company. Knowledgeable management understands that defining your value must be confined to the permissions and constraints of your job description. While an employer’s evaluation will feature some “subjective” issues such as behavior, team player ability, and loyalty, senior management should quantify your performance in terms of overall value to the organization.

If you are new to the workforce, you should postpone a self-evaluation until you become more comfortable with the workplace and learn the details of your job. As a new employee or a recent member of the professional workforce, any self-evaluation results are realistically restricted to the “potential” value category. Just as you could truthfully argue that a new employer’s value definition is impossible since they haven’t seen you in action, a self-evaluation is restricted by similar concerns.

Should you be a senior employee, you must concentrate on objectivity when evaluating your true value. It can be too easy to decide that you are loyal, creative, dedicated, and effective, without considering how you might be perceived by co-workers and management. Being honest with yourself helps you expertly analyze your value.

Steps to Reaching Valuable Employee Status

While there is no magic potion to transform you from average to valuable employee status, some simple steps establish your position as a high performing and valuable member of the staff.

1. Understand your current value as an employee. Whether you’re a new or senior employee, understand your present value, as defined by you and your employer. If you’re not sure how your employer feels about your value to the organization, ask them. You probably know your supervisor well enough to discern whether you receive a patronizing platitude or an honest answer.
2. Communicate intensely and offer consistent feedback. While you may be thinking, “Everyone always stresses open communication. Why is it so important?” Good communication is mentioned in many articles and discussed at most seminars because it is the single most important component to high achievement. Strong communication skills involve the understanding, by both employee and management, that clarity, consistency, and honesty is paramount. Just as you value receiving feedback from management, they appreciate you giving them feedback.
3. Don’t pontificate; walk the walk. Senior employees must be particularly careful to not only talk about the best way to complete tasks and support the company, but to behave and perform on a daily basis. Much like the universal law of writing—“Show; don’t tell.”—talking about how to do a job properly must be followed by your actions that do the job properly.
4. Embrace and directly face daily challenges. You can view daily job challenges as interference to your efficiency, or you can treat them like obstacles that you will face and overcome successfully; deriving a personal reward by achieving success. You’ll also offer a public display of your value to management and co-workers.
5. Be a mentor and establish a legacy. While this step is difficult if you’re a new worker, you could find a senior mentor and learn how to perform this important function. If you are a senior employee, adopt a mentoring attitude to start building a valuable future legacy. Mentoring younger employees is a wonderful and effective way to earn valuable employee status.

Creating an atmosphere that allows management to view you as a valuable employee strongly improves your work experience and advances your career in all industries. Senior employees can create the perception of “valuable” instead of “older” by following these simple but effective steps.