How to stay visible and get promoted when working from home

4 ways to advance your career from your home office

It's long been assumed that remote working and ambition don't go hand in hand. 

Why?

Because when you work from home, you're less visible. There aren't the quick conversations as you wait for the kettle to boil, or you stand in the line for the water machine. Yet, as we approach 2023, there are more remote workers than ever before.

What does this mean for your career progression? Does working from home mean you have to put your career progression path on hold?

In short, no. After all, positions still need to be filled or new roles assigned - especially considering the amount of change most businesses have been through in recent times.

So let's look at which steps you can take to score points from your home office so that you can climb the career ladder.

1. Be visible: network!

Are you guilty of logging on at 9am, logging off at 5pm and not speaking to a whole lot of people in between?

Well, this is the first thing that will need to change.

When you work too quietly from home then you reduce your visibility, which means when someone starts to consider candidates for an internal promotion your name might not be the first one that pops to mind.

How to network from home:

You want to draw attention to yourself without being intrusive at the same time. Meetings offer one possibility, and something as simple as turning your camera on is a quick and easy way for colleagues to feel more connected to you. 

Try being more active in meetings and making a concerted effort to participate, ideate and help people as much as you can.

Beyond scheduled meetings you can increase your company stock by:

• Offering to help colleagues on projects / tasks where you've got relevant knowledge
• Learn a new skill that will help you contribute to your team / individual goal
• Keep communication open and regular between you and your line manager: make sure they know what you're working on (and how hard you're working!)
• Ask for feedback on your work so you can identify any areas of improvement

If your boss doesn't offer it or if you don't have a standing review meeting you can also request an session to report on your work, achievements and successes. After all, it has been proven that employees in the home office often do far more than they ever did in the open-plan office!

With all these tips, however, the following caveat applies: don't overdo it! Don't get too pushy, become too forceful in meetings or push yourself too far onto centre stage. Slow and steady wins this race!

2. Take on further tasks

If you want to push your career, visibility alone is usually not enough, you've got to put in the hard work, too!

Go the extra mile and show willingness to take on new tasks and projects! For a career jump you sometimes have to go a step further, even in the home office, possibly by learning a new skill or set of skills, or volunteering to take part in something run by another department.

It doesn't always have to be a huge project. The current work situation of remote working can pave the way for more creative solutions: let's say you work in marketing and you're struggling to prioritise a big project. This sounds like a terrible time to ask to take on an extra project, right?

Wrong.

Instead of thinking in terms of the cost, think in terms of the reward. What if, in this example, you spent an hour of your time attending a project management webinar and learnt how to prioritise tasks and set meaningful deadlines? Sure, you've spent an hour learning it but this'll have the dual benefit of (a) showing your boss you can take initiative and (b) making your day-to-day work easier! 

3. Communicate

Stay in constant dialogue with colleagues and superiors, especially if you cannot see them face to face. Take the opportunity to have a virtual lunch or a virtual after-work beer. If you have something to clarify with a colleague, it is better to pick up the phone instead of only communicating via email.

This small-talk conversations can help replace the water-cooler-esque chats you might've had before, and you can often learn of new opportunities or of interesting areas for development by talking things through with your colleagues. 

4. Score with skills

Building on the example from the previous paragraph, one of the quickest ways you can show your boss/employer you are serious about your development is by boosting your own skillset or by helping others learn new things by teaching them what you know.

Do you have excellent media skills? Then support others on the team who are having a hard time with it. Do you have good self-management skills? Then perhaps you can help a colleague that's struggling to find a structured approach to working from home. 

Share your knowledge. Give your colleagues tips and show them what works well for you (and what could work well for them, too!)

Another important skill is social competence (especially when most of our social interactions at work now take place through a screen). 

Are you also a good team player when your team is not there? Are you able to communicate well at a distance without your words being misinterpreted? Can you put yourself in other people's shoes and empathise with them?

Social skills are incredibly important for working together in the home office. So take the opportunity to incorporate skills into your everyday work - it'll help foster teamwork, help boost your feeling of connectivity with your team and it'll show your boss that working from home isn't a detriment, but an advantage.

In conclusion:

Instead of seeing working from home as a handicap, see it as an opportunity to explore new methods of communication, to learn new things, teach new skills and perhaps even take on new projects. Make sure you keep your ear to the ground and that your boss knows how driven you are to make that next step in your career!