Want Your Employer to Invest in You? Get Invested in the Company

“Show me why I should stay.” This demand from employees echoed in the wake of the Great Resignation.

Continuing a trend that began as far back as 2009, a record-setting 47 million employees voluntarily quit their jobs in 2021. These “Great Resigners” cited insufficient wages, lack of advancement opportunities, and disrespect from employers as their top reasons for leaving.

Companies responded with urgency, desperate to counteract a mounting labor shortage and attract new hires in an intensely competitive job market.

“Show me why I should work for you,” the jaded labor market challenged. Many employers responded by offering huge sign-on bonuses, even for entry-level positions. Recent grads with no relevant experience were inundated with job offers, accompanied by unheard-of compensation packages.

Now we’re entering Q4 of 2022, and while the resignation trend hasn’t slowed, the employer response to it is shifting.?

“Show us why we should keep you,” employers are retorting.?

And too few workers are prepared to respond.

Quiet Quitters Are Getting Not-So-Quietly Fired

“Quiet quitting” is the latest buzzy phrase about how we work. It describes employees who, for one reason or another, are highly disengaged. These workers don’t plan to resign, nor do they intend to put in more than minimal effort. And employers—the same ones who paid out big signing bonuses—are starting to assess the value of their team members differently.?

As companies claw their way back to profitability, they’re leaning into an age-old budget-bolstering solution: big layoffs.??

Wayfair slashed nearly 900 jobs. Peloton laid off more than 4,000 employees over three waves of cuts. RE/MAX announced plans to terminate 17% of their workforce by the end of the year. And these are just a few of the global brands trimming the proverbial fat.

More workforce reductions are coming from employers of every size and industry. And when the time to downsize arrives at your own company, the first employees to go will be the team’s bottom 10%—the poorest performers.?

If you don’t want to be a casualty of the current drive to downsize, you need to start proving your worth.

Prove Your Worth to Protect Your Job

If you’ve seen the film Office Space, you’ll remember the scene in which Jennifer Aniston’s character, Joanna, gets approached by her boss at Chotchkie’s, the casual dining restaurant where she works. He points out that she isn’t wearing enough “pieces of flair”—the pins and buttons meant to help Chotchkie’s servers “express themselves.” Frustrated and overwhelmed, Joanna eventually tosses down her towel and throws up her middle finger. “There’s my flair,” she exclaims loudly, “and this is me expressing myself!”

We’ve all worked for bosses who preferred appearance over substance. What the Office Space scene doesn’t delve into, however, is the genuine value of exceeding expectations—even seemingly silly ones.?

And while “flair” does practically nothing to enhance customer experience, product positioning, or employee satisfaction, there are substantive ways to go beyond the bare minimum, prove your worth, and keep yourself out of that bottom 10% who will soon get pointed toward the door.

As a recruiter, employer, and parent to a Gen Z student, I’m an active witness to the struggles of today’s businesses and workers. And I can tell you that the most successful strategies for getting (and staying) hired may not be what you think.

Stay engaged with your company’s culture

Let me be clear: company culture is not about hanging out at work. Playing ping-pong and going to happy hour can be fun, relationship-building experiences, but those experiences are byproducts of a strong company culture—not the main event.?

Staying engaged with company culture means consistently prioritizing the company’s core mission.?

Specifically, how can you help move that mission forward? What can you contribute to better achieve your team’s purpose? How do your unique skills, traits, and talents further the company’s success?

Meaningful employee engagement involves approaching your role from a work-first foundation and allowing other relational aspects to grow organically. Yes: be a likable human being. But remember that while being liked is nice, being useful is necessary.?

No one earns their next role by being the person everyone likes but no one wants to work with.

Stretch beyond your comfort zone

Let go of the outdated belief that your career success is directly related to the number of hours you work. What you do with your working hours is much more important. Most companies would prefer a high-performing 30 hours-per-week employee to a low-performing 50 hours-per-week one.

Showing up is useless if you don’t use your time well, and the best way to optimize your time is to embrace new challenges that push you toward development and growth. A risk-averse mentality won’t advance your career. That’s not to say you should be careless, but flexibility and adaptability indicate that you possess the mental fortitude to go the distance.

When I see an employee eager to learn and driven to grow, I want to invest in that person. That’s the individual a company will keep, even when significant budget cuts are required.?

Cultivate your competitive spirit

It’s rarely beneficial to compete with your colleagues, but what about competing with the best version of yourself? Know what you’re capable of, then strive to operate at a higher level. When you seek to one-up your capacity, you discover what’s possible in your role, on your team, and within the organization—and in doing so, you become invaluable.?

Self-competition is also the most effective way to weave a compelling narrative about your contributions. If your sole motivation is to topple your peers, you won’t be an effective self-starter, let alone a persuasive leader.

Instead, regularly explore opportunities to outdo yourself. Perform each task better the second time, then the third time, then the fourth time. Be present for your work, and you’ll never have a run-of-the-mill resume—even if you are the unlucky victim of a company closure and find yourself back on the job market.

Great Businesses Depend on Passionate People

Companies don’t spring to life, fully formed and thriving. A company needs people—people to breathe life into an idea, people to create the service or product, people to build a team, and people to inspire the customers.

Every company’s greatest asset is its human capital. While the term may feel sterile and impersonal, human capital is precisely what and who we are as owners, leaders, and contributors within an organization.?

Like any asset, a company’s people—from the CEO to the most junior employee—must prove their necessity within the business. One day the company will need to make difficult decisions about where to allocate its capital, and the least valuable resources will be allocated out of the company altogether.

It’s not personal. It’s business. And while you may not like the reality of business today, there’s no escaping it.?

Stop hitting the snooze button, and answer this wake-up call before it’s too late to begin adding value as an employee.

Show your employer: “This is why you should keep me.”