Increasing Your Personal Non-subsitutability

With pink slips flying around like spit balls in a 10th grade health class job security is less and less a plausible term. To really increase your job security, one must increase one's non-substitutability.

What can you control in your role?

Differentiation: Make sure to be able to articulate quickly and succinctly what makes you better at your job than anyone else. Look up a list of competencies (ie: learned behaviours) and figure out which ones you possess and which ones you need to work on.

Controlling tasks: What tasks are you responsible for in the organization? Which one of these tasks would halt the sales/production process completely if you weren't there to do it? Figure that out and make sure that you master that task.

Controlling labour: Traditionally this would mean striking or work stoppages but I like to take a different spin on this aspect of non-substitutability. No matter your job, you have control over how you DO your job. Are you happy or melancholy? Are you the office joke machine or the quiet wallflower? Make sure that you let your managers know how much you love what you're doing, how you're innovative and making great strides in process improvement. If you were a manager that needed to cut 50% of your staff in a certain role and performance was equal across the board, would you keep the happy, innovative person or the melancholic 9-5er?

Controlling knowledge: You might think that this means you keep your info to yourself and don't share it on pain of being replaced with someone cheaper. On the contrary, becoming a knowledge center and being the go-to person for all things informational related to your role will increase your level on non-substitutability. Go so far as to offer info session, lunch and learns, etc.

Take a hard look at your role and how you may be perceived in your organization. Focus on these four ways of making yourself stand out and you'll be more likely to receive a promotion than a pink-slip.