In many workplaces, it can feel challenging to gain recognition without resorting to self-promotion that feels inauthentic or exhausting. This post suggests four practical strategies to enhance your visibility and ensure your contributions are acknowledged, all while staying true to yourself.
Understanding Workplace Visibility
Workplace visibility means that your work is noticed, acknowledged, and valued. It’s not about boasting but about ensuring that your efforts contribute to the organization’s goals and are recognized by colleagues and supervisors. Increased visibility can lead to a more fulfilling work experience and, at times, to new opportunities and career advancement. The Call Center that I founded and manage employs people who, by and large, have never worked before, so, often, new employees start out with little self-confidence. These are some of the measures these employees utilize to (quoting one of them): “shyly get myself noticed.”
4 Ideas to Enhance Visibility
1. Helping out: Look for little opportunities to help out and contribute beyond your immediate responsibilities:
Often, teams need someone to help out—to stay a little longer to help finish a project, help show a new team member the ropes, or even help decorate the office for Christmas. Being available and happy to help with the little things always gets noticed and appreciated.
2. Initiate: Volunteer for projects and side jobs to position yourself as a valuable team member:
When new projects or pilot ventures (time-limited projects that are scratched if unsuccessful or continued if successful) turn up, most employees are hesitant to volunteer for them. People don’t like change, are afraid to fail—Why leave something you’re good at and take a chance?… Taking on such assignments or projects can showcase your capabilities and definitely showcase your dedication. By stepping up for these opportunities, you demonstrate initiative and character while positioning yourself as a valuable team member.
3. Prepare and share your insights, humbly, in meetings: Enter meetings with a clear understanding and readiness to add value when relevant:
Sharing your insights in meetings regarding a skill, technique, or coping mechanism that works well for you can increase your presence. At the relevant time, present your ideas as something you “enjoy doing this way” or “find helpful thinking about that way.” Avoid referencing the “good results” you deliver working this way to keep your ideas (and yourself) in the realm of “humble but useful.” Preparation is key—understand the upcoming agenda and consider where and when your input will be both relevant and add value. If you feel flushed and embarrassed when speaking in a group, don’t try to hide it or fake it. Your determination to aid the team despite your discomfort while doing so will in itself speak in your favor. For a boost in morale, check out Brené Brown’s TED talk.
4. Accentuate your efforts at improving: An employee who is constantly trying to get better will be appreciated for their spirit and work ethic:
Keep track of your accomplishments and areas that you have improved in and share them when you meet with your superior or during performance reviews. Don’t accentuate your success or results (managers know those) but rather the effort and care that you put into improving various metrics: “I’ve been trying to focus on…” as opposed to “I’m getting so good at…killing it…”
By implementing these four strategies, you can enhance your visibility in the workplace authentically, leading to greater recognition and career advancement, and you can do this in a humble and quiet way while keeping true to yourself. You will also find that at the end of the day, you, being yourself, are really not bad at all (keeping it humble) at what you do.