How to Prove Your Value When Working Remotely

Feeling overlooked? Here are a few tricks to communicate your value, virtually.

You’re efficient and good at what you do — but sometimes you may feel disconnected from management or that your work is going unnoticed. Proving your value can be difficult when working remotely, but there are a few ways to get, and stay noticed even when you’re not physically in the office.

1. Maintain Your Responsibilities While Working From Home

Your daily tasks take precedence, always. This includes being attentive to your phone, email, and instant messages throughout the day, and responding in a realistic time frame. It can also be helpful to document your tasks for your manager, allowing them to retain visibility over your work at home. This shows that you’re a reliable and responsive member of the team, committed to your professional development, both inside and outside of your office building.

2. Challenge Yourself to Improve Your Professional Growth

Inevitably, there are some aspects of your job that may come more naturally than others. It’s important to be aware of areas that you could improve upon. Working from home may give you more time during the day, which provides the opportunity to upskill and strengthen your capabilities. Be sure to share with your manager which skills you’re working to improve. Committing to your learning and professional development can only further your career growth and help prove your value as a team member.

3. Avoid Negativity and Disruptions in Workflow

It’s important to prioritize positive professionalism and career development, combatting any workplace negativity. Look for opportunities to support your team members and praise their efforts in meetings. Even with remote work, you can still get noticed for going the extra mile, putting in consistent effort, or offering new ideas and thoughtful advice. If you are feeling burnout, unappreciated or have experienced an incident in the workplace that made you uncomfortable, go to your manager.

4. Be Punctual and Adaptable Working From Home

Consistently meeting your deadlines, being on time for online meetings and managing your timelines builds trust and shows your value as a team player. If you’re ever in doubt about whether you’ll meet a deadline, be transparent and open with your manager. In a similar vein, maintain your flexibility and be adaptable if there are adjustments, changes or work-from-home challenges — which, when working remotely, will happen from time to time. Being adaptable in an ever-evolving workplace is a desired quality in a valued employee.

5. Be Present and Engaged in Remote Work Meetings

Focusing solely on the meeting and task at hand is respectful to your boss and colleagues. Try not to multitask, which includes looking at your phone, answering emails, responding to messages, or talking to a friend or spouse in the same room. Staying present gives you the opportunity enhance your work communication skills by asking questions and catching important bits of information that may slip by if you’re multitasking.

Arrive to meetings a few minutes early if you can. This gives you a chance to greet your colleagues and catch up, taking a few moments to foster relationships even though you are working remotely.

6. Celebrate and Acknowledge Your Wins

Advocate for yourself. When wrapping up a particular project or overcoming a challenge at work, celebrate yourself. Tell your manager about your good results. It’s more than okay to be proud and confident about your professional achievements. In fact, it can lead to a higher sense of motivation when you acknowledge your wins, big and small.

7. Plan an Office Visit

Where possible, and if you have a local office, plan to visit on a semi-regular basis. Face-to-face interaction is highly beneficial for teamwork, communication and relationship building. If you take the time to nurture relationships with your team and colleagues, it makes it that much easier to work at home without sacrificing the level of connection and the visibility of the work you are doing for your manager.

If you’d like to learn more about furthering your professional development and how to show up for your team while working remotely, explore our Career Advice section for more career content.

This article was originally developed by Aston Carter EMEA and adapted for Aston Carter North America.