MICHAEL JJINGO: How to make yourself indispensable in your trade

Many times, we are important, but not indispensable! This even happens in our side hustles. When some people are not around, some things go wrong or are not right. Let’s not forget many of us tend to be very busy, but no value add. You could strive to be irreplaceable for a long time in whatever profession. We can aim to be valuable and indispensable.

Think back to all of the teams you’ve worked with throughout your career. Chances are, there are a few individuals who stand out in your memory; individuals who were simply indispensable to the team and the organization at large. They could have been brilliant, hard working or even very innovative.

Indeed, the truly indispensable employee is becoming increasingly rare. Across organizations of all sizes, skills, knowledge, and relationships are more distributed than ever. There is a strong sense of entitlement that many modern employees show; it becomes easy to understand how team members can be seen as replaceable.

While there is certainly an element of responsibility on behalf of the employer to create an environment where people can feel secure, it is largely incumbent upon employees to find ways to make themselves indispensable inside of their organizations and their professions.

With self-awareness, you will know your strengths and play to them accordingly. Too often people try to force themselves down a path that is not right for their particular skills or interests. You will know your strengths to leverage on, as you delegate the weaknesses. Pick your passion and blast it.

Once you identify your strengths, the next step is to develop soft skills that complement those strengths and help you extract the most value from them. Too often, employees focus far narrowly on the skills that are core to their position. For example, software developers tend to spend the bulk of their time learning new techniques, certificates and programming languages, rather than developing the skills that help them communicate effectively and manage internal constituents.

For talented and passionate sales teams, thinking through complex opportunities, exclusive offers and various strategies comes easily. However, they never see the light of the day if executives do not buy in. Focusing on growing their communication skills is the next clear step to becoming an indispensable part of the organization. Employees. become indispensable when they focus on their natural talents and master the skills that help them make the most of their strengths.

Many people may think that playing the organizational politicking, “technical know who”, excelling at performance evaluation levers them above others, to becoming

indispensable. True, they win in the short run. This may not be sustainable especially where there is apt performance tracking against clearly defined and SMART deliverables.

Hard-work; can you outwork those around you to be indispensable? It sounds obvious, but when employees take ownership of tasks and put forth their full effort, leadership takes note. Indispensable employees don’t have to be asked to work late, or come in early. They simply do what needs to be done to drive their projects toward success.

Passion and creativity may propel you ahead of the pack, to being indispensable. In tough times, resilience and recovery will be fueled by passion. Creativity shall certainly shortchange the effectiveness at delivery that positively impacts the end customer satisfaction. This shall not only assure you of long term job assurance, but also the ability to chart your job satisfaction.

Armed with knowledge/ skills about that trade/ profession plus being able to share it puts you a notch higher, and thus indispensable. Better to understand what the market leaders are doing within and without your region; that will trigger the innovations.

Well, attitude and behavior matter far more than ability. Better to have an earnest, hard- working employee who can take ownership of things and communicate with the team than that brilliant one. This hard work, coupled with the ability to recognize one’s strengths and the drive to develop complementary skills makes for an employee who is central to the operations of the company.

Let’s not forget the others like Commitment, integrity, reliability, adaptability, being dependable, self driven, team player, highly motivated. Then the mental and physical health, emotional intelligence, networking and interpersonal skills.

When you’re indispensable in your trade, you not only create your job security; you give yourself the opportunity to chart your course in life. You stand out in the crowd basis the value addition you offer. However, this comes with some hard work.

The writer, Michael Jjingo, is the General Manager Commercial Banking at Centenary Bank