To succeed in your career, you should try to be the best employee possible. This way, you can stand out among your colleagues and increase your work opportunities. For instance, good employees tend to get promotions, raises, positive feedback and other additional work perks.
A good employee is someone management can trust to do a good job. They work towards the company’s goals and come to work prepared each day. Along with being a hard worker, a good employee also knows how to treat their supervisors and colleagues with respect. They help promote healthy company culture and encourage others to succeed. Generally, good employees are highly valued by both their employers and peers.
Adhere to company guidelines
When first starting a job, thoroughly read through your employee handbook. Companies create these handbooks to keep employees safe and comfortable at work. By following your company’s policies, you set a good example for other employees. This means acting professionally, staying on task and being honest with your time.
Dedicated
Anyone who knows how to do a job can go through the motions, but only someone who wants to do a job better will improve. That’s what dedicated employees bring to the table – a desire to improve and the drive to make it happen. This kind of passion can push employees through setbacks, keep them on track when schedules get hectic and inspire their best efforts on every assignment.
Critical, big-picture thinking
A good employee takes the time to pause in his day-to-day and assess bigger-picture goals, always ensuring his work aligns with the company’s goals and has a positive impact on the companies bottom-line.
Even if you’ve just started at a new company, it’s never too early to ask questions and take an interest in the larger organization. Strategic, big-picture thinking is a sign of a good employee, and your boss will take notice if you take the time to think critically about the problems or tasks at-hand and how they fit into your company’s overarching strategy.
Confidence
Confidence and productivity often work well together. Confident employees not only believe in their abilities to manage tasks, but they are also more likely to convince managers, coworkers and customers of their abilities as well.
With developed confidence, you might also find it easier to embrace challenges in the workplace. This includes immediately looking for ways to overcome these challenges and succeed at your current tasks.
They speak up in meetings
Especially if you’re in a large meeting, intimidated by the higher-ups there, or don’t know much about what’s going on, it’s easy to sit tight and listen. But the people who get ahead don’t wait for permission or an invitation to speak—they make sure everyone in the room knows they have something to contribute.
Even if you don’t have a suggestion? “Speaking up to advocate for a co-worker’s point of view or asking a well-thought-out question can go just as far,” says leadership coach Jo Miller.
