Hello everyone and happy Monday! As we return into yet another new week, today we’re planning on teaching you how to approach an expansion of your responsibilities in any type of work role. If you feel as though your skill level has “plateaued”, you’re chasing a promotion, or otherwise feeling a lack of professional stimulation, this article is for you! Keep reading to learn how to appropriately express a desire to take on greater and wider obligations…

Expanding Your Workload…

• Time Block: At Esquire Recruiting, we are huge fans of making time schedules with blocks assigned to various activities, tasks, assignments, and of course breaks too! Doing so will help you stay on track with the priorities of the day, remind yourself to take a brain break and eat, exercise, or walk around and leave your desk, and keep the prioritized tasks at the front of your mind. So, if you’ve “blocked” off most of your responsibilities and still see a gap wide enough to take action on, this may be a great indicator that you’re ready for new work.
• Communicate! Communicating your desire to take on additional work to your teammates and any available management is a great way to be transparent about your work-life balance, motivation, and perseverance to get the job done. When your support system at the office is aware of your situation, they will be much more readily equipped to take you up to higher responsibilities!
• Explain Your “Five Year Plan”: When approaching management, you may be asked why you feel as though you prepared to take on greater responsibilities or are suited for the next lateral step or promotion. Explaining your future goals (and they don’t need to be outlined as strictly as a five-year timeline!) and where you see your career accelerating towards will showcase to your team and leaders that you are self-aware, guiding your self-growth, and suited for a raise.
• Take it Step by Step: There will undoubtedly be times where it just isn’t the right fit for your boss to bring you up to speed in new projects, responsibilities, or roles. If this is the case or you feel that the conversation did not pan out how you’d hoped, then try taking little steps one at a time! Whether this means offering a helping/volunteering hand to your teammates or manager on an upcoming project, staying a few hours after work to get ahead of the next day or week, or reaching out to new teams to try shadowing or lending some help in new avenues will showcase your dedication to growth and productivity.