Visibility is no longer optional. If you're not proactively and consistently showcasing your contributions at work, your role could be one spreadsheet away from elimination. Demonstrating your unique value is important if you’re in-office or hybrid, but it’s absolutely critical for remote workers.
Why? A Wall Street Journal analysis of two million white-collar workers showed that remote workers get promoted 31% less often than their office-based peers. (WSJ, 01/2024)
Out of sight, out of mind.
If you’re hoping to advance at your current organization or strengthen your position in the market, it may be time for a mini-career audit. Here are a few action steps you can take today:
1. Be a Painkiller, Not a Multivitamin
Vague expertise isn’t enough anymore. Your work needs to be demonstrably helping solve a specific business problem, and you should be able to describe it in one sentence. If you can't do this, your manager probably can’t either.
A simple starting framework could be, “I use my [strengths / skills] to help [team / department] achieve [specific goal / outcome], resulting in [positive impact for the organization].
When leadership asks, "who's great at X," you want your name to be the obvious answer, not one of six people they have to think about.
2. Build an Internal Fan Club
You can't self-promote your way into a promotion. Other people have to say your name in the rooms where decisions get made, and that's particularly difficult to achieve when you're fully remote.
A few ways to create meaningful connections on purpose:
Schedule a standing 15-minute call with your skip-level. Not for status updates, just for visibility.
Give a genuine weekly shoutout on someone else's work, in a channel their manager will see.
Send your manager a monthly accomplishment summary: what you delivered, what changed, where you need support. Keep it brief.
3. Stack the Evidence
Feelings won't get you promoted or save you when it counts. Log every win the week it happens, not from memory at review time.
For every win, track:
What you accomplished.
What improved because of it, ideally backed by data.
Who noticed, repeated, used it or benefited from it.
Bonus points for including what you learned.
Three months of this and you're not walking into your review saying, "I think I had a strong year."
Doing this periodic check isn’t difficult, but making it a habit can significantly improve how you’re perceived.
Start today. Write your one-sentence pitch, name three people who'd vouch for you today, and log this week's win before you forget it.
You’ll feel better, I promise.
Annie Landt has spent two decades in corporate communications, including 10 years leading global comms for Accenture's 300,000-person Technology organization.
After experiencing personal and professional losses at 50, she turned the same skill set on herself — writing about communications, reinvention, and the visibility most professionals avoid until they're forced into it.
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