Do you also find it difficult to understand which areas you should focus on improving, when working as an employee? There are so many that it is hard to find out the major ones that can help you take a big leap in your current job.
There could be multiple different areas of improvement at work, but some major improvements can help you grow in your career a lot compared to others. And that is what we are going to talk about in this blog.
In this blog I will show you how you can improve as an employee in the most critical areas, that you should never miss if you want to grow in your career.
To understand all of the areas of improvement, I will explain why focus on them and how you can improve on those areas through some examples.
So, without further ado, let’s get started!
What Will You Learn?
6 Areas of Improvement at Work
Even though there are many small or big things that you might have heard from your manager or senior where you can improve, to actually be specific and not get overwhelmed we are going to focus ourselves only on 6 major improvement areas.
What are they? I have listed them down according to their importance (it is just my opinion) and where you should start from (just a suggestion, not a hard and fast rule) –
- Mindset to learn
- Adaptability
- Time Management
- Teamwork
- Communication
- Integrity
- Leadership
Some you might already be aware, and some might be new to you. For some of them you might think whether they are important to you or not.
To be clear, I will explain each of the areas and why I think you should definitely learn them!
Mindset to learn
I think this is the biggest skill you could have if you are working at a company or even in general. Why?
People grow only when they learn, and they will learn only when they feel they don’t know something.
Having the mindset of learning means you are open to suggestions, ideas and new techniques of doing the same thing in some other way.
This is more like a mindset and psychology than a skill, but still, you can learn it.
How?
First understand the fact that you don’t know something. If you accept only this fact, then other steps are really easy!
Then you just take the action of improving or learning through your colleagues/managers/seniors/courses etc. The source of learning could be anything.
Sometimes requirements also change, and we change the way we used to do things previously. What should you do in that case? Adapt!
Which brings me to the next area that you should improve.
Adaptability
Adaptability is another important skill that you should definitely improve if you are not flexible enough to new changes.
Why?
Working on organization means you will have to follow what they are doing or asking you to do.
New requirements will come, old requirements will be replaced, new people or technology will come and your organization might start using it which you are not good at.
How will you solve these problems?
By being flexible enough to new changes, having a mindset to learn and adapt to the new requirements.
How can you do it?
First make sure you know and understand the requirements, it will help you understand what additional things you need to know or do.
Find resources that can help you get those additional skills or learn from seniors who are already doing that.
Because you will always have limited amount of time to adapt, so you have to adapt slowly with the requirements and need.
While you will learn all the additional things and at the same time working on your tasks given to you, how will you manage everything? Will you get enough time?
It brings me to the next area that you can improve, which is time management.
Time Management
Time management is a top-rated skill in all professional in all levels. There are thousands of resources sharing how to manage your time.
In your work, it is very essential that you manage your time effectively between different tasks.
Working efficiently keeping the time in mind will help you delivering solutions within deadline and create a positive impact on your overall performance.
How you are going to do it?
In the book “Eat that frog” it is mentioned pretty well that you should start your day with your most important work (your biggest frog!).
Follow the 80/20 rule and understand your 20% most important work and then give time to those tasks in the start of the day.
If you think the task has no importance to the requirements, then avoid doing that task. If any repetitive task is coming to you, then try to delegate it to your colleagues or use automation tools if available.
Sometimes you have to take help from your colleagues to manage your task and deliver within deadline, for that we need teamwork and communication which will help us delegating our task, cooperate in difficult tasks and deliver things faster.
Teamwork
In most jobs, teamwork is a skill that you will definitely see in the job description. An organization is a team even if that is a startup it a team of people working together.
So, it is important that you know how to work in teams and cooperate with team members.
How to do that?
Regular updates on your team members, what they are working on, whether they are stuck at anywhere else or not. This information will help you understand their needs and problems and will help you cooperate with them and help them.
Remember, if you take the initiative of helping your teammates, some of them will definitely help you out in your critical situations when working.
Don’t gossip and waste your time on irrelevant things, spend time with people you like and even if you don’t like someone, don’t create a bad atmosphere with them, just be empathetic and understand them and also help them if you feel.
There could be conflicts as well, but you need to manage them by talking and listening to your team members.
This brings the next important area to improve, that is communication!
Communication
Communication is the single most skill that you need in all areas of life whether you are an employee or doing something else.
Communicating involves listening clearly and speaking in a way that is easy for the person to understand.
No matter what level, communication is an important skill, and you must master it.
How?
It is not a simple thing that you can master in just one day by following some courses. But with practice you can improve your communication.
Regularly shooting a video helps a lot in improving your communication, as it takes care of your speaking skill and body language in general.
Another thing you can do is listening patiently when your team members are talking. We are always ready to talk and give our opinion, that is the biggest problem in communication.
Instead of always trying to give your opinion, try to stop yourself and listen patiently to what your team member is trying to say.
This creates empathy and makes your team member happy as you were someone who listened and understood him properly. If not understood, then ask again for clarification. Miscommunication should be always avoided.
When communicating with team members or managers, you need to take responsibility for what you are doing and what your team is doing that is what leadership helps you in doing.
Leadership
Leadership is not just leading team, but also taking responsibility for all the mistakes that you or your team is doing.
Why do you need to be a leader when there is already a leader?
Every company whether small/medium/large need leaders who can lead their team, think by themselves, are responsible for their choices and work.
Executives can’t always manage the company people if the company is big or is growing. One person can’t manage all people and coordinate them properly.
Executives need leaders to do that, and every leader need another line of leaders who will manage their sub teams, this is how a company grows.
Taking leadership roles can improve your chances of promotion and getting a better role in your team.
And as a leader it is important to have integrity and honesty of whatever you are doing or saying.
Integrity
Integrity is a personal skill, and it is not restricted to a company. It is an essential thing that many people expect for you, and it helps you build trust and good relations.
In your work, integrity has a high importance because everybody somehow will know what you are doing.
And if it does not align with what you said to them, then it will create trust issues.
Building integrity and trust with others will take time as it a gradual process and creates an image of you in your work.
But, the first step is being true with your team members, if you did some mistake then acknowledge that and continue doing that. It will become a habit and will be easier for you do next time.
When you acknowledge your mistake, then only you improve. It also builds a positive image of you inside your team members, as nobody likes to be lied or deceived and if you do then they will know someway or other.
Conclusion
Working professionals always need to improve their skills and knowledge about their fields to get be relevant in their fields. It does not matter which field you are working on.
Staying relevant in the time of AI is difficult, but improving your soft skills can give you edge over technologies. But you need to always improve from your mistakes and have the mindset to learn from them.
With this, you now know which areas you need to focus on to improve yourself in work!
Liked my blog till now? Read the next part of this blog here.
References:
