Knowing if you are value-adding to your company's success?

Why would you want to know if you are a value-adding component of your organization? At least for the following two reasons; first is simply to know where you stand in respect to job security, future opportunities including promotion, new challenges and remuneration. The second is to know, for personal development reasons, whether your role actually means anything to anyone, including yourself.

I decided to write on this topic taking into account the economic challenges we are facing in the world today. Many people are being made redundant, there is concern about where new jobs will come from and on top of that there is an issue where the meaning of many roles is becoming very unclear, adding stress to the human resource system.

Without going too deep into the concepts of personal development, engagement and satisfaction from your role within your company I wanted to address the more immediate concern of job security, value of knowledge and skills and future employment prospects. What we are finding in the current economic climate is that many roles are no longer needed and this is leading to either redundancies, people being let go, lack of pay rises or indeed pay reductions. Many of us are finding it hard to cope because lets face it, Gen Y and late Gen Xers have never worked in this kind of environment. We would have never thought that "my skills and knowledge is obselete" and in fact we have something in common with the older generations and their 'job for life concept'. So the question is just how valuable to your organization are your skills and knowledge?

You have to start by being completely honest and looking at both the direction society and your organization is moving. If you have a niche skill, is the demand for that going to continue in the future. An example of this is mortgage broking...sure it will continue to be needed but not to nearly the same degree. The bottom line is that you cannot think your skills will always be needed by your employer, but you also have to remember that they will not tell you that until it's too late.

To be able to ensure your job is safe and be able to request any rise in remuneration you have to make sure you are fulfilling a demand - a demand by both the organization and society. This is the only way to know you are a value-adding component. The work I undertake with my clients is around this very matter...determining the value of someone's current skills and knowledge both now and in the future. Plus more importantly determing what skills and knowledge will be required.

So ask yourself two questions; firstly could my organization replace me easily if I decided to leave today and secondly, what would it mean to my organization's bottom line and performance if my role no longer existed? Answering these honestly will give you a good indication of where you stand. What you then do about it is up to you.