The Working World

How to Keep Your Job by Becoming Irreplaceable

At the risk of stating the obvious, skill, talent, and seniority no longer guarantee job security. And blackmail and corporate espionage aren’t great alternative strategies — it’s generally better to get canned than to get jailed.

But there are ways to you reduce your chances of getting targeted during the next round of layoffs. After all, every workplace has a few key players whose bosses believe the place couldn’t run without them — whether it’s the person who can run a finicky fax machine or the only staffer who maintains a good rapport with a difficult client. These people tend to be the same ones who avoid layoffs time and time again.

You can become one of them — without a lot of hard work but with a good dose of sucking up. Here are five other tips to follow:

Build relationships with important clients. Connecting yourself to an invaluable client and building up a good rapport (or even better, a genuine friendship) is a great way to become indispensable to a company — especially if your bosses fear that the client would walk if you were let go.

Take on the tasks your boss hates most. Whether it’s collecting expense reports from colleagues or just stopping by to ask if anyone wants coffee, taking on the annoying tasks that eat up your boss’ time is a great way to become more valuable—which will hopefully lead him to her to fight harder for you to stay when the corporate axe eventually falls.

Cut down on office chit-chat. Longer-than-average breaks at the water cooler will get you noticed, and not in a good way. When bosses see employees milling around they can get the idea that those people aren’t working hard, which makes them seem more expendable. So stay away from the water cooler, avoid participating in idle office gossip, and if you’re really that thirsty, just bring a water bottle.

Become a top seller. If you work in sales, then layoff season should be your time to shine. With less competition around, it should be easier to climb the ranks and become a top salesperson. It’s much more difficult for a company to lay off the person who brings in the most money than it is to lay off the third or fourth person down the line.

Show up early and stay late. As standard as this advice is, it really is key. Make your boss think you’re the hardest worker in the office—even if you’re really just checking your Facebook and Twitter accounts—and your chances of getting dropped during the next round of layoffs will decrease. This means cutting down on the days you work at home, too, since bosses can sometimes downplay an employee’s importance to the company when they don’t see them in the office as frequently.

It should be noted that while these tips may help keep your job, they probably won’t improve your popularity with fellow coworkers. Then again, that might not matter if they all get laid off anyway, so it’s probably best to protect your job and avoid worrying about what other people think.

Tags: business, jobs, layoffs, The Working World, tips