I like the idea of being indispensable at work, it appeals to my ego. Unfortunately, it doesn’ t work in reality for my workplace, for my work and for me, for a couple of big reasons.
- Everyone will come to you for everything that you are known for being indispensable for. This gets very tiring after a while and also affects how much work you can get done. After all if you are busy helping everyone else, you have no time to get your own work done.
- What happens with your work when you are away? There will be days when you won’t be in the office, or you will be sick or away on leave. If you are the only one who can do it, what happens to your work when you are away.
My works requires me or someone else to be doing something with it pretty much every day. The every day part is related to online customer service, so if I am not around, someone else needs to know what to do.
So I have an accomplice, who knows how to do all the important things and then I have extensive documentation so that if neither my accomplice or I are around, someone else can do it. And those who have that responsibility for picking up that task in our absence, have had some basic training and know where to find the documentation if they need it.
What are you going to make yourself redundant?