Concerned that your hard work might be going unnoticed? Here’s how some people have been keeping themselves visible while working remotely.
Working from home has had its ups and downs. We’ve faced a number of new challenges, from Zoom fatigue to looking after our colleagues’ mental health from a distance.
Another concern when teams are dispersed is visibility, as workers can feel isolated or unseen when they’re not regularly interacting with colleagues in person.
Job-search platform Joblist recently surveyed 1,000 remote workers in the US – both managers and employees – to learn more. It found that more than one-third of the employees surveyed had gone out of their way to get noticed by their manager while working remotely. Of these, 85pc said they were successful.
Three-quarters of all employees also said that maintaining visibility while working remotely had required extra effort. When asked how invisible they felt, 29pc said moderately invisible and 25pc said very invisible.
Women who took part in the survey were twice as likely as men to say they felt extremely invisible working from home. On average, respondents had gone around six days without talking to their manager and around five without talking to their colleagues.
Strategies for staying visible
So how have the employees been keeping themselves visible? The most common method cited in this survey was keeping projects moving forward, with 41pc of respondents relying on this strategy. More than a third (37pc) said that they paid extra attention to the smaller details of projects, too.
Other employees tried to go the extra mile by taking on additional work to help their co-workers, with 37pc of respondents taking this route. Of these, 22pc were satisfied with how much they eased a colleague’s workload.
Joblist stressed the important of sustainable strategies, however, noting the high rates of burnout for remote workers. “As employees and managers echoed alike, keeping a visible team takes extra effort when going remote,” it said.
“But, for many employees and managers, this adjustment wasn’t always easy, as people had to take on colleagues’ work or go above the job description just to feel seen. As the workforce attempts to adjust to the pandemic and the new form of work, visibility isn’t as easy to maintain as we’d like.”
Click to enlarge. Infographic: Joblist
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