Getting Recognition

[Jackimalyn]

OK, Im the webmaster of our company's website. No one else in the office knows anything about the web... at all. We have a lot of pricing pages and we update pricing a lot. This led to either taking 3-5 days typing in each price or copying and pasting blocks of text and then editing the styles on the website. This caused typos and all sorts of problems, not to mention a waste of time.

So, I linked the website to the database that I originally put all the prices so all I have to do is upload the new database to the web and all the prices get updated. Vwa la! Now, this doesnt effect anyone but me, there are no typos and it takes minutes versus days.

How do I get the recognition for it since its so "behind the scenes"? Send an email to my boss? What would you guys do??

[Virgo Nightingale]

I would write a fairly carefully worded email to the effect of: "Just so you know, I resolved the issue of the typos in the pricing pages by linking the pages to this nifty little database that I created. This will also take less time to update since there is no manual typing or copying/pasting. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding this."

I personally would just make sure to word it in a way that doesn't seem like you're fishing for compliments. But then again, I'm probably too modest for my own good.

[Drazan]

That's one of those things that is hard to get recognition for because it's not visual. Unless there is someone else there that recognizes the knowlege that it takes to do this - no one is going to understand or care.

What I would suggest is that you keep tabs on what you do to make you more effiecent and valuable to the company. Then when your performance interview is due up - present a nicely typed/designed page/report on what you have done in your position to better the company and workflow.

It's all about money.

If you start going 'hey look what I did' in a corporate environment with nothing noted to prove that the Cool Thing is cost effective and thusly more profitable to the company - no one cares. If you want to make it a value statement by doing a single page report to your boss on the new procedure to better value to the company.

Well that's my experience at least.

Personally, job well done! I don't know how many situations I've stepped in because "it's always been done that way" and the refusal to do something better. Yay for taking the inititive!

=)
Jade

[mojoprime]

yeah, to echo what draz says, it you don't get kudos from anyone else, you'll get them from us. a lot of times, that's how it works for us.

that was a great idea and a great job, jacki.

[Jackimalyn]

It's all about money.


Thats what I ment by "recognition" heh...

You guys are right, I dont want to toot my own horn but mayve ill just make mention of it and then bring it up more in my review. A lot of people at my company dont like change so its just been this way forever. until...

enter: Jackie!

thanks you guys!

[Jackimalyn]

damn secret good work.

[Drazan]

The Secret Association of Graphic Designers.

Or mission is to undermine the existance of ineffecincies to better spend our time in GDF!

[Kool]

I wouldn't tell anybody. Then you'll have all that time you used to spend doing it to come here and pancake off. ;)

[SurfPark]

You won't get an instant income boost because of this task, but its best to spin your own PR for all your good deeds. Stress how valuable you are. You need to make yourself pratically irreplacable in the company. This will give you justification to ask for more the next time you are up for an annual raise. If you don't have an annual raise in coming, its best that you present your case to your boss with a list of accomplishments to back up your request. Here are some helpful things to point out...

1. Money. Mention how you're saving the company money because they don't need to keep you around long hours to do a job that normally took days.

2. Time. You saved everyone in the company the turn around time for their projects. By having you able to tackle different projects quicker, you're making progress move much faster.

3. Relate to Them. No one cares exactly what you did, just that it worked. Find ways to relate how your tasks have made their work lives easier.

[urstwile]

You won't get an instant income boost because of this task, but its best to spin your own PR for all your good deeds. Stress how valuable you are. You need to make yourself pratically irreplacable in the company.
No one is irreplaceable. I think it's not necessarily good advice to encourage anyone to go for that as their goal.

I do agree, though, that it's a good idea to stress the positives about the work and extra effort you've put into things to make things run more smoothly. Jacki, you came up with this idea on your own, put it in motion, and as a result, invisible as it might be, the company is seeing the positive benefits of that proactivity, in terms of time saved and less errors.

Being proactive is pretty much always a good thing, and that, to me, is much more of an incentive to keep an employee at a job and see that, as an employer, your best interests are served by keeping them happy (financially and otherwise).