May Busch* explains how remote working can decrease their profile — and therefore their chances of promotion. She has three steps to avoid this.
How do you position yourself for promotion when you’re working from home?
This is a real worry in an environment when virtual working has become part of the norm.
Without natural opportunities to speak to senior decision-makers at the end of a meeting or have your manager see you in action, it’s that much harder to build the relationships and reputation that you’ll need for promotion.
So, what do you do when you want to get promoted but have the apparent disadvantage of being virtual?
Here are three steps to achieve it: Keep your boss updated; be proactive in reaching out, and get clear on what’s expected.
My best team members were the ones that were ‘no surprises’.
They kept me informed regularly and frequently, often with just a short email or note.
I never had to worry about whether they were working on the thing I had delegated or whether they were going to meet the deadline.
I knew I could trust them and that made it easy for me to support them for promotion.
When people don’t know what you’re doing, their imagination can run wild.
For example: “What if they’re not being productive? What if they’re not going to meet the deadline?”
This is especially true if your boss has micromanager tendencies, because not seeing you in person will only make those tendencies more pronounced.
So provide regular and frequent updates and stay in regular communication.
Which brings us to the next step: To avoid being ‘out of sight, out of mind’, you have to invest in your relationships.
Advancing in your career requires that you have a network of people who know who you are and what you do.
While that feels harder to build and maintain when you’re working from home, it’s only true if you let it stop you from moving forward anyway.
Don’t wait for others to reach out to you under the assumption that senior managers should be taking the lead.
Since you’re the one with the most to lose and gain, take it upon yourself to do the reaching out.
Most people will welcome the chance to connect because they’re facing the same situation.
The benefit of your being proactive is that it gives others visibility on how terrific you are.
It also helps you get visibility on what else is going on around the organisation.
They say the next level of opportunities lies in the connection between areas, not digging deeper into the area you’re already familiar with.
So go ahead and travel in different circles and bring back the learnings.
This brings us to the third way: To know where to put your efforts, you need to have clarity on management’s expectations of you.
This is especially important when you’re not in the office and therefore unable to pick up on the subtle signs and vibes as to whether you’re on the right track or not.
Physical distance is an additional barrier to communication, so much more goes unsaid.
That’s why you need to be intentional about agreeing expectations, not just on your general responsibilities, but also the specifics of what success looks like from their perspective.
How they see your work aligning with the bigger goals of the unit and the milestones they’ll be looking for along the way.
You’ll also want to get clear on expectations when it comes to communication.
How often do they like to be updated, what kinds of issues to flag and when, and what’s their preferred mode of hearing from you.
This is also the ideal moment to get visibility about permissions and boundaries.
What permissions do you want to ask for so you don’t find yourself worrying later?
Equally, think about any permissions you want to give.
For example, you could grant your boss permission to give you real-time feedback or to ask you for an update if they find themselves wondering.
As for setting boundaries, it’ll be useful to discuss and agree on when you’ll each be available and when you won’t.
When you’re not physically in the same location, it’s hard to know whether someone is available, so establishing these rules upfront will reduce the chances of misunderstanding.
Even if you already know what’s expected of you, it never hurts to check your assumptions because we all have blind spots.
This could be the mistake of working extra hours because the boundaries between work and home are now blurred.
This will burn you out and keep you mired in doing tasks at the expense of being strategic.
It will ultimately reduce your ability to demonstrate that you’re thinking and behaving like someone worthy of promotion.
Which of these steps would most help you pave the way for your next promotion while working from home?
Being visible is one of the pieces of the promotion puzzle, and there are other important areas to work on too.
*May Busch works with smart entrepreneurs and top managements to build their businesses. She can be contacted at [email protected].
This article first appeared at maybusch.com.
