Over and Beyond Expectations - Becoming the Exceptional Employee at Work

If you have read a lot of books, listened to podcasts, or even watched many videos about financial or wealth education, then it is very likely that you would have come across the following statement a couple of times. "You really cannot become rich by being an employee or by doing a 9 to 5 work in an organisation." How true is this statement in the light of current realities? Is this a case of faulty overgeneralisation or does this statement contain some universal truth? This statement would be critically examined as a precursor to the central theme of this discourse.

Without an iota of doubt, it is quite difficult for a vast majority of those in paid employment to climb up the wealth ladder and relocate themselves to better and higher social classes. And the reasons for this are not far-fetched. Cost of living tends to rise (due to inflationary pressures) while income (from salaries and allowances) remains fixed. Consequently, there is little, or nothing left for savings and investments without which an individual cannot improve his/her financial lot.

However, the above may not necessarily apply to all salary earners as some employees, including senior managers and directors, earn more than just salaries and allowances. Company executives in large corporations often receive performance bonuses when corporate targets are met, and the organisation is doing great in terms of financial performance. This implies that they earn both fixed income (like salaries) and variable income (like bonuses and share options). As a matter of fact, their salaries might even be a small fraction of their total earnings for the year.

Consequently, the two extremes above tend to invalidate the statement that you really cannot become rich by being an employee or by doing a 9 to 5 work in an organisation. We can now clearly see that you can become rich by working for your employer. Indeed, all employees are equal, but some are more equal than others. The people in the latter extreme can become wealthy by investing the excess income available to them in profitable ventures.

Before we go any further into this, we should remember that our focus is not on personal finance but on professional development. So, we will lay emphasis on why the company executives earn that much rather than how much they earn or how they manage their finances. The focus is on what you can do to become an exceptional employee in the workplace and earn more than just your salary and be able to also invest and become wealthy even as you are in paid employment.

Let us consider some of the actionable steps you can take as you commit to making the progression into the C-suite in your organisation -

• Locate yourself in the organisation's core - just like all in countries in today's world, all the employees in an organisation can be placed in two major categories - the core and the periphery. The core consists of those that make the organisation thick while the periphery are those that can be easily replaced when they leave. Be sure to position yourself where you become indispensable to your employer.
• Ensure that you are cordial and warm-hearted in your relations with others - You cannot move up the organisational ladder if you lack good people skills or if you build a wall of isolation around yourself. Being a manager requires that you possess interpersonal skills that enable you to properly handle your interactions with superiors, subordinates, colleagues, clients, partners etc.
• Adopt a cross-functional approach in your day-to-day tasks - As it is the norm in a typical organisation, you do not work in isolation and therefore the quality of your work influences the outputs of others. As an accountant, for instance, your work will have an impact (whether positive or negative) on the outputs of other managers and supervisors within the organisation. So, you should regularly appraise the impact of the work that you do.
• Invest in yourself whenever the opportunity shows up - As an upwardly mobile professional, you cannot afford to rest on your oars. You should seize learning opportunities both within and outside the organisation if such opportunities would aid your personal and professional development. Acquiring new skills and competencies is a prerequisite for career advancement.
• Always get things done from the perspective of extreme ownership - Having a mindset of extreme ownership means that you hold yourself accountable for the results that you produce and for those that others produce that may affect yours in one way or the other. It does not involve throwing blame around but by taking the bull by the horns when things go wrong and working with the mindset of a strong team.
• Become a well-known problem solver - When you become the go-to person for tough challenges or very difficult problems, then you are setting yourself up for greater roles soon. Organisations need people who can demystify complex problems and set a good precedent for other workers to follow. This might require you to change your perspective on the problem or even take a calculated risk.
• Enhance your communication skills in all possible forms - Your ability to express yourself clearly, both in written and spoken forms, is integral to your career progression. Register for a communication skills training if you must, but your competence in this critical area is non-negotiable. Effective communication will boost your ability to manage not just your subordinates but also your superiors as well.
• Focus on meeting your higher needs too - As you advance in your professional career, financial considerations should play a lesser role in vital decisions regarding your work or future. If you have already achieved a certain level of financial stability, then you might want to take up a job that gives you intrinsic motivation rather than one that pays more especially when the wage increment is marginal.

Becoming a star in the workplace is no rocket science but it takes a lot of dedication and sacrifice on the part of an employee to attain enviable heights in the organisation. Sometimes, it can be very frustrating when your hard work is neither recognised nor rewarded especially when you work for bosses who do not appreciate their members of staff. But, if you keep up the great work you are doing, you will eventually get what you want or you might just be fortunate, through word of mouth/referrals from within and outside the organisation, to land a bigger and better job elsewhere where your expertise, efforts and experience would be duly acknowledged. This would most certainly place you on the path to where you want to be – On Top!

See you there!