Maintaining Value in The New Normal of Work

So, a lot of revelation has come into light in the past few months of the global mode of work. Companies have begun to see, study and leverage on insightful data of their work force and how it affects their company overall business operations.

It’s no longer abnormal to see modes of work that was only common in large multinational organizations or developed countries of the world now being adopted in small and medium scale businesses and developing countries as well.

It’s the mode of working remotely and working shifts.

The scenario at play here is, whether you or your company is properly adjusting to this new mode of working or not. Particularly, as an individual, you have to frequently ask yourself if you are well positioned or positioning yourself to remain relevant and valuable in what has gradually become the new norm of work.

For a start, I would recommend that you ask yourself the below question.

In the context of this new work model, am I still valuable to my organization? Or put another way, “Am I still bringing value to my business or organization?”

Now, asking yourself this, does not have to mean that there must be something critical in your place of work or business which the responsibility lies on you. Not necessarily.

What this simply means, is evaluating if you are in any capacity valuable or can be valuable to your team, business unit or organization as a whole.

VALUE: The keyword here is value. And a characteristic of value is that, it is something (positive or negative) that can be qualitatively and/or quantitatively measured. You can see the outcome in the results it has on your work, your colleagues, products, services, processes and/or your organization at large.

Value is visible.

Are you still valuable in the new normal of work?

This might be a tough one to come to terms with. But the truth is we live in a generation that has seen development move at a much rapid speed than any other generation before now. More and more tasks and functions that used to be done by people are now being automated and handled by Artificial Intelligent (AI) systems. And as more people transition from face to face interaction to electronic and screen-based interaction, you also have to transition your skill set to adapt to the new digital economy we live in.

Say, for instance, your typical day of work involved making cold calls or doing a door-to-door sale; that approach is not likely to be effective today as it once was. With concerns of security, tele-fraud and the likes you might not be as productive or make sales as you would hope. This is also not factoring the hours spent and physical labor these approach demands. And scalability being crucial for any organization that plans to grow; this approach cannot scale.

The question now is, what do you need to do to stay valuable? Well the internet is plenty rich in advice and directions on routes you can take. But just to recommend a few here.

1. Learn Digital Marketing

Like the sales analogy used earlier, being laborious, unable to scale and having low value output. You don’t want to be that person, especially if your income is directly tied to your sales.

No! You want to be the person who leverages on the modern digital channels available to reach a much broader audience in less time, using less resources at a much lower cost than ever it would have cost you before. This is in alignment with the concept known as the Economy of Scale; doing more efficiently at a reduced cost.

You want to learn how to do marketing campaigns on proven platforms like Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google etc.

And the good thing about acquiring these digital marketing skills is that you don’t have to loose a limb on the costs of learning. Just check up on YouTube where you can find a ton of free videos that walk you through getting started on Digital marketing. You can also use paid for services like LinkedIn Learning and Udemy which give you full spectrum digital marketing trainings amongst others.

This skill is actually a valuable skill to have for individuals and organizations, at this present time.

2. Learn a Correlating Technical Skill

For just about any popular vocation today, there is some form of digital tool or software that can increase efficiency in terms of time, performance, accuracy, cost, etc. on the delivery of tasks that need to be accomplished.

As an accountant, you might still be comfortable using your advanced calculator. However, in the fast-paced world we live in, that would not suffice at all. In present day, more volume of numbers are being crunched than ever before, that a simple or even complex scientific calculator cannot work on. Hence on the barest minimum, you should invest in learning at least a spreadsheet application. It can be cloud based like Google sheets, or desktop based like Microsoft Excel. And when you feel comfortable with these, you might find the thrill to go for much more advanced correlating technical skills.

For, perhaps, technical drafting like Architectural niche, you would be investing in learning something like AutoCAD for computer aided design of your drawings.

The point to note here, is that for just about any vocation or business today, there are numerous correlating digital tools you can begin to learn to increase your efficiency and hence increase your workplace value. Make sure you have at least one correlating technical skill in your arsenal. Actually, the more skills the better.

3. Specialize — Be a Subject Matter Expert

Personally, I like the philosophy of knowing a little about everything and knowing everything about one thing.

However, while that might be quite difficult in the faced paced world we live in, this philosophy still carries weight.

You want to be the person who can easily glide into just about every subject that concerns your business. Hence, invest time to know a little bit about everything of your business or organization.

This is actually the reason behind big organizations rotating new hires across different departments for the first six months; so, they can have a feel and basic understanding of the general operations of the organization as a whole, before settling down in their core business unit of specialty.

Now talking about core business unit of specialty, that’s where being the subject matter expert comes in. Know beyond the basics. Keep updating your knowledge, always. Such that when expert advice is needed in your organization, you would be the deep insight person to bounce off ideas and give direction.

4. Keep Growing — Constantly evolve

This is usually a tricky one. The reason being that most people if given the opportunity would rather stay in their comfort zones and resist any change that causes them to stretch beyond what they’ve come to know as their comfort zone.

Truth be told, growth does not always come easy. But it’s certainly necessary if you want to remain relevant and valuable in the constantly changing world of business.

Let it be at the forefront of your mind that, Complacency is a surefire way to quickly loose value in the fast-paced world we live in.

Hence, observe the trends of the industry your business operates in. Learn the skill that would make you a valuable member of your business unit or organization at large.

Uphold ethical principles, but evolve with the era and trend.

5. Stay Up-to-date — Stay Observant

You know how some analysts seem like people who can predict the future? Well, it’s not always the case. They have just gotten very good at observing the past and the present trends, extracting valuable insight from the studies, and using this insight to make forecasts (what you may call predictions) of how the future business terrain would play out.

This is like the Regression Analysis used in the data science world to make quantitative predictions of events based on other events.

However, you don’t have to be a data scientist to be observant of past or present trends. Just keep up to date with the trends in your niche. There are countless websites, newsletters and magazines that can keep you updated. Just make sure you are always making out the time to observe and study the trends.

Know the trends of your industry. Know the good to have skills and the necessary to have skills.

Observe the direction your industry is headed and gain The Plus Factor skills, which are the skills you need to have, to stay relevant in the present and future economy of your industry.