# What makes a better employee?
- Published: 2022-04-15 (updated 2022-12-02)
- Author: [Connectively](https://blog.connectively.us/author/terkel.md)
- Topics: [Questions & Answers](https://blog.connectively.us/category/questions-answers.md), [Thought Leadership](https://blog.connectively.us/category/thought-leadership.md)
- Source: https://blog.connectively.us/how-to-be-a-better-employee-14-tips-from-managers/
- Publication: Connectively
- Publisher: Connectively (Terkel, Inc.)
- Editorial policy: https://blog.connectively.us/editorial-policy/
## How To Be a Better Employee: 14 Tips From Managers
To help you be a better employee, we asked HR Managers and business leaders this question for their best tips. From asking for feedback to participating in employee advocacy, there are several insights that may help you become a better employee in the future. Here are fourteen tips on how to be a better employee:
- Ask for Feedback
- Hold Yourself Accountable
- Improve Your Time Management Skills
- Expand Your Circle
- Speak Up About Problems
- Ask Questions
- Separate Your Professional and Personal Lives
- Say Yes to Things
- Find Opportunities to go Above and Beyond
- Create a Guide to Your Job
- Offer Support to Fellow Employees
- Adapt Your Communication Style
- Find a Source of Passion
- Participate in Employee Advocacy
How To Be a Better Employee: 14 Tips From Managers
### **Ask for Feedback**
Asking for feedback is one sure way to be a better employee. Seeking out constructive criticism shows that you are serious about improvement and that you are open to hearing observations about your performance. Also, asking for an evaluation shows that you care about your job and want to be the best employee possible.
### **Hold Yourself Accountable;**
Employers look at many qualities when evaluating an employee, and though skills, work ethic, and accomplishment are important, what can really impress and make a team member standout to both management and coworkers alike is a sense of accountability. Everyone makes mistakes or decisions that don’t work out, however, how you handle your missteps says a lot about various qualities you possess as a person that will have a direct impact on your performance.An employee that points fingers, skirts responsibility, or looks for excuses, is one that displays a lack of trustworthiness and questionable team and problem solving skills. Owning your mistakes, shows self-reflection and humility, and will be viewed as an open-minded quality that makes you a good team member. By holding yourself accountable, you will demonstrate that you are willing to acknowledge your mistakes and learn from them, which in turn, makes you a better employee.
### **Improve Your Time Management Skills;**
Improving your time management skills. There’s always room for improvement when optimizing the amount of time you dedicate to a particular task or project. To do so, you should switch from multitasking to prioritizing your work. It can get tough around busy business months, but multitasking at work reduces both work quantity and quality.;
Task switching decreases productivity, so prioritize your tasks and remove anything that’s a distraction from the equation. Facilitate this by planning your time. It’s best to have a monthly, weekly, and daily plan for the perfect combination of micro and macro perspectives. If your schedule is very dynamic, try at least planning one or two days in advance instead of winging it. It really makes a difference.
### **Expand Your Circle**
By expanding your circle at work, you can become a better employee by creating quality relationships and learning more skills that can make you more effective. Seize any opportunity to work with a coworker that you have never teamed up with before, especially if they are outside of your personal circle or team. Your employers will notice your efforts and initiative in immersing yourself in your company’s culture and trying to make yourself known across all teams.
### **Speak Up About Problems**
Being honest when you are struggling in your position can help make you a better employee. Rather than just leaving to find another job, openly communicate with leadership about what issues you are facing. This gives them a chance to make things right. It also shows that you are dedicated to your position and the company, which in turn instills confidence in you as an employee. If people keep quiet about problems, it is much less likely that they will ever get fixed.
### **Ask Questions**
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. When we don’t ask for clarification or support, we can’t be working to our full potential. Employers hire you because they see the value you can add to the company. They will invest in your success, but only if you express that you need help. By asking your team questions, you better understand your role and company standards.
### **Separate Your Professional and Personal Lives**
As an employee, you should be able to keep your work and personal lives separate. This step will teach you how to manage two aspects of your life. You must be a professional employee and not bring your problems into your work. If you’re having trouble at work, don’t blame it on your children! If you’re fighting with your husband or wife, please don’t let it show during important meetings. Professionalism entails understanding how to deal with these situations.
### **Say Yes to Things**
A great employee is one who says yes to most things. Employees who are not afraid to try new projects and get their feet wet. They become versatile in many different areas and their skills improve drastically, making them a vital employee to the company.
### **Find Opportunities to go Above and Beyond;**
Our tip for being the best employee comes down to finding opportunities to go above and beyond. When you show leadership your dedication to a role, they will give you more growth opportunities. One way to do this is to connect the dots between your company’s strategies and the KPIs they measure. Once you understand your role in their objectives, you can perform beyond expectations and create new opportunities for yourself by showcasing your awareness and commitment.;
We all have a part to play in helping our companies function better. Show management that you work smarter and harder so they will understand how valuable an asset to their business you are.
### **Create a Guide to Your Job**
If your company wanted to hire someone new to do the exact same job you have, what would that new hire need to know? Creating a handbook that new hires can use is a great way to improve your own capabilities. Through the act of writing you’ll find gray areas and see the limitations of your own knowledge compared to what you know. By improving the guide, you improve yourself, and create something truly valuable that you can carry with you across your career.
### **Offer Support to Fellow Employees**
One of the easiest ways that someone can be a better employee is to offer support to their fellow colleagues. A company is only as strong as its weakest link, and a good employee knows that, sometimes, your colleagues need some extra support. Be a better employee by becoming the person that your colleagues trust and feel comfortable coming to you for support. Not only does relationship building help make work much more enjoyable, it helps you create a network of people that can also help you when you need it. If you have your colleagues back, they will have yours, and the best way to make this happen is to lead by example. At the end of the day, relationships are the most important thing we have, and if we can support our colleagues at work, we can become both better employees and humans.
### **Adapt Your Communication Style**
You need to learn how to adapt your communication style to communicate effectively with others. Everyone communicates differently, so be flexible in how you work with your coworkers. Some people hate phone calls, while others prefer them to texting, for example. When in doubt, ask your coworkers how they prefer to communicate so you can collaborate as effectively as possible.
### **Find a Source of Passion;**
Find a source of passion in your job. Most employees go to work to fulfill their own needs, some are career based but let’s be frank, most employees are going to work to pay their bills, fund their hobbies, and care for their families. That means that a job’s only significance is how it can serve other aspects of life; when framed like this, a job holds no intrinsic meaning or value to the individual performing it. If you want to be a better employee, advance your career, or just enjoy the value of your labor beyond financial aspects, start with passion.
Find something in your profession that you are passionate about and view your job as a vehicle to help you engage with that passion. Whether you’re a doctor, a plumber, or a cashier, there is something worth taking pride in about your job, and if you can’t find it, it might be time for a change.
### **Participate in Employee Advocacy**
Every organization holds the element of employee advocacy in high regard, thanks to its many advantages ranging from improved talent acquisition to building trust among stakeholders. When an employee proactively engages in advocacy to show the organization they work for in a good light, it helps the brand in several ways, making such an employee an invaluable asset.
Danielle Bedford, [Coople](https://www.coople.com)
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