Four Easy Ways to Get Noticed at Work

We all like to get noticed at work. Sometimes it’s because we’re gunning for a fat promotion, but mostly it’s simply because getting recognition for a job well done feels good. In reality though, our achievements often seem to fall by the wayside and get lost in the noise, without so much as a “thank you” or “great job!”

So how do you stand out from the rest of your colleagues, when everybody else seems to be fighting for the spotlight? Well, I think I have an answer for you. Here are four easy ways to get yourself and your achievements noticed more at work.

1. Say Less

Making a lot of noise isn’t necessarily the best way to draw attention to your skills and qualities. It will get you noticed, but probably not for the right reasons.

Chris Matyszczyk puts it nicely when he says “if you want to really stand out, a quiet, well-timed conversation will do much more for you”.

The idea here is not to withdraw into a shell of silence. Rather, you should make sure that when you do speak, the things you say are important or insightful. This will teach those around you – like your colleagues or your boss – to really listen when you have something to say, because they know it will be useful.

2. Mind Your Manners

Being polite and respectful is another huge way to get yourself noticed by your peers.

“People who have the best and most-polished manners, and who can communicate well, will always stand out from the crowd” says Mary-Lou Duggan, practice manager at Pierce Business Advisory and Accountancy Group.

People like and respect you more if you are discreet and even tempered. They like and respect you more if you remember to say “thanks”, or hold the door open for them. And if they like and respect you, it means they are noticing you.

3. Build One-On-One Relationships

Getting noticed at work isn’t usually about doing big things that make everybody say “wow!”

As the points above mention, it is more often about the small steps you take to establish yourself as somebody who people want to listen to when they speak. A great way of working on this, as mentioned in Business Insider, is by building strong, one-on-one relationships with the different people you work with. This is especially useful if you are somewhat introverted, and feel uncomfortable making small talk with larger groups of people.

The more people you introduce yourself to personally at work, and the more people you build sincere relationships with, the bigger your network of people who want to notice you becomes.

4. Solve a Big Problem

If you have a degree of flexibility in terms of what you can work on at any given time, then Liz Wiseman, president of Wiseman Group, suggests that you resist the temptation to work on something you are really interested in. Instead, she suggests that you work on figuring out your boss’s biggest challenge, and then solving it.

Working on solving something that you are not very interested in might seem like a pain, but Liz says that for her, it really opened up new doors for her, because of the respect it earned her. As a result, she was given many more opportunities to do the work she truly loved.