It's a common misconception that working remotely makes it difficult to progress professionally. Remote contexts render traditional value signaling ineffective. There is no "facetime" with the executive team, no team-building happy hours after work, and no points are awarded for arriving early and staying late.
How to keep building your career remotely?
Working remotely brings specific advantages for improving your career, however, critics ignore them. You typically have more time and energy to devote to developing new talents, enhancing your brand, or climbing the corporate ladder when choosing your own schedule. However, remote employment may be the only option for parents of young children or people who live outside of major cities to pursue their career goals.
Career Advancement
Career development is the continual (and often lifelong) process of choosing, advancing, and developing your career. Learning, making decisions, and getting to know yourself well enough to constantly assess your strengths and shortcomings are all part of developing a profession you can be proud of.
Many of us continue to work remotely, at least part-time, despite increased company pressure for employees to physically return to the workplace. Moving up the ranks and integrating into a firm might be challenging when working alone. It's more difficult to stay at the forefront of people's minds. This might lead to proximity bias when advancing your career and getting that promotion. This implies you need to take proactive measures to ensure the work-from-home or hybrid arrangement isn't stalling your professional advancement.
How to keep building your career remotely? These are 7 methods for maintaining professional growth in a remote working environment.
1. Notify your superiors
You must hold frequent online status conferences with your boss. You should set up this arrangement on your own if your boss does not do so for you as a remote worker. You must have a virtual venue for meetings with your manager. This is to discuss your progress on your tasks, ask about any coveted assignments or projects you might like to push for, and remind them of your accomplishments. It does not need to be extensive or complicated. Moreover, record your accomplishments for the year-end review. Don't expect your manager to recall all of your accomplishments in increases and promotions.
2. Use the resources presented in online meetings
How to keep building your career remotely? You no longer have those haphazard "water cooler" talks if you live remotely. Make sure you join virtual team meetings early so you can engage in some light conversation with your teammates about subjects unrelated to business when individuals log in. If at all possible, request that someone stays after the meeting to talk with you. On a project you are working on, seek feedback or advice. Asking for input from others can help you come up with creative ideas and answers. It also makes people feel needed and included.
3. Kindly ask for what you want
It's simple to become engrossed in your daily responsibilities in a remote workplace when everyone works from different places and forgets to speak up for their professional progress. However, if you don't, nobody else will!
Inform your manager of your professional objectives and request advice on how to achieve them. Be open about the process and make sure your goals line up with what your manager has in mind for you. If you're seeking a promotion, research what it will take to advance you, then develop a strategy to obtain the knowledge and expertise required.
4. Make your own connections with others
Ask one of your colleagues to meet you for lunch or breakfast if you live nearby but work remotely. To keep in touch with your coworkers, consider hosting a gathering at your house. To continue to expand your intracompany network even if you are physically remote from the office in another part of the nation, plan a virtual one-to-one once a week with someone from your department or from a different department. Moreover, arrange a face-to-face encounter if you are traveling and near a corporate office.
5. Support in-person professional development
Staying up to date with developments in your field is essential for your professional progress. You should arrange to attend one or two in-person conferences each year to stay up to date and stay connected, even though there are still chances for webinars and conferences online. Another excellent approach is to get one or two organizations with ties to the sector to join. It is beneficial to have monthly in-person events where you interact with people in your sector, even if you work from home. Your next chance could come from one of these professional development events. This could be in the form of a new customer, supplier, speaking engagement, or even entirely new employment.
6. Continue to learn
Take advantage of any chance to learn more about your work. Take advantage of the chance if your employer, for instance, offers to pay for you to attend a three-day conference or a series of online lectures (even if it requires you to leave your home office).
The experience will teach you something. You will become a better, more knowledgeable, and yes, more valuable employee as a result. Your manager will be impressed by your commitment to continuous improvement.
7. Try not to leave the office completely
Even though coming into the office may not be required by your employer, you should nonetheless do so. Identify the reasons why your coworkers and bosses should see your face. Set up a lunch appointment with coworkers or a regular monthly in-person meeting with your employer. Another option is to leave your home office and work in the office. This will make people aware of you and keep you informed about developments in your department and organization. These developments might not be communicated through a formal announcement. You'll stay informed with business news.
After COVID-19, several businesses completely abandoned their physical locations. Be proactive and arrange a meet-up with coworkers nearby if you don't have an office. The get-together could take place over a meal or even a group activity, like a morning of volunteering with a nearby nonprofit.
Conclusion
You will need to be more inventive and deliberate in furthering your own career given the altered professional landscape following the pandemic. Instead of waiting for opportunities to develop and connect to come to you, utilize these techniques to stay at the top of people's minds. You can also ask for vivid possibilities.
We, at OpenGrowth, are constantly looking for innovative and trending start-ups in the ecosystem. If you want to have more information about any module of OG Hub, then do let us know in the comment section below.
