People who work harder don’t necessarily achieve better results in the workplace, and if you want to get ahead, you need to brag about your accomplishments to your colleagues, experts say.
When you meet a colleague in the office and they ask how you are, you shouldn’t respond with the typical “fine” or “busy,” says professor Alison Fragale.
Fragale, an organizational behavior expert at the University of North Carolina, says we should instead proudly boast about some recent accomplishment.
As embarrassing as that behavior may seem, Fragale told the Wall Street Journal that it will help change your colleagues’ perception of you and put you on the path to a promotion.
“We have opportunities to tell our story all the time, but then we throw them away,” Fragale said.
And he offered some advice on how to stop feeling self-conscious about bragging: Think of colleagues who have managed to climb the career ladder by doing the same thing.
Alison Fragale, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of North Carolina, suggests that employees seeking a promotion brag to their coworkers about the great job they’ve been doing.
He said those being promoted are already boasting about their efforts.
He also said workers should ask themselves what positive parts of their workload are not being recognised by their bosses as work is increasingly done behind the scenes.
In fact, Tessa West, a psychology professor at New York University, found that 80 percent of people wear multiple hats at work, such as chairing a committee or collaborating on a project with another department.
More than half of these additional responsibilities do not carry any additional compensation.
“People often assume they get credit for these things, but the credit just lives in the boss’s head,” if the boss remembers at all, West said.
Tessa West, a psychology professor at New York University, found that 80 percent of people wear multiple hats at work.
Sometimes, the manager might not even want to share with the boss all the extra work you’re doing for fear it will make him or her look disorganized, she added.
So West recommends asking your boss if the extra tasks you take on come up during annual performance conversations, when bosses judge their employees behind closed doors.
And West says sometimes workers need to take a strong stand to demonstrate their dedication to their specific role.
She suggests saying “no” to tasks that are on the periphery of your job description and says workers should justify their refusal by saying they want to hone their existing skills.
If you can’t figure out how to juggle the extra workload you’re taking on, it probably won’t help your career, West said.
Following some of the tips can make employees feel like Michael Mount from the sitcom The Office. The character, played by Steve Carrell, was known for his arrogant statements and regular gaffes at the fictional paper manufacturing company Dunder Mifflin.
But experts insist that combining their advice with a lot of hard work is the way to get ahead.
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