Are You Forgotten?
What’s the number one complaint from anywhere workers and leaders? Being forgotten.
- Not being included on that meeting invite
- Not being added to the list of potential promotions
- Not being informed of the changes to the compensation program
Co-located workers have the luxury of staying in the top of mind of others by just showing up to work. Unfortunately, the anywhere worker must work hard to stay on the same level of visibility. Because you want to be….
- -assigned to that special project;
- -acknowledged for the work you do;
- -informed as things happen;
- -considered for promotions and bonuses;
- -valued, appreciated, and heard.
Build Awareness
Being an anywhere worker has more in common with being a self-employed worker than you may think.
An indie worker must spend a slice of their time on marketing. In this context, marketing refers to activities that increase awareness. For the self employed, that means making others aware of what services they have and how they can help their prospective clients. For an anywhere worker (employee, team member) marketing yourself means taking action to stay visible to your team members and boss.
How do you stay visible? Stay in touch.
If you develop this skill you will be head and shoulders above all of the other anywhere workers in your organization. You may even be more visible than that guy in home office that never leaves his office.
3 Steps
1. Identify your stakeholders. People to consider are those who influence your success directly or indirectly: your boss, your team, the executive assistants to the C-suite team, the IT team, etc.
2. Establish a communication plan. For each individual: identify how frequently you need to talk with them; identify what form of communication they prefer (text, email, phone, etc); identify what you want to communicate (status update; article of interest; feedback; etc); create a repeating appointment or task in your planner / diary for each person making sure to spread them over the course of your week / month.
3. Stay In Touch. Execute your communication plan. Make sure each connection is unique for that person. Do not write the same email to everyone so it looks like a form letter. Genuinely connect.
Bonus Tip: Apply this same approach to your professional network outside of your employer or even with your friends and family!
Challenge: Become the person everyone remembers and talks about with positive regard. Let’s stay in touch!
your executive coach,
