How Corporate Employees Unknowingly Hurt Their Job Security by Avoiding Risk
The ones who stand out aren’t perfect—they’re bold enough to act without permission.
Most office employees in the corporate world play “defense”—they avoid failure as much as possible.
They aim for mistake-free stats. They believe that the fewer mistakes they make, the better the salary bump they’ll get on their next annual review. It theoretically makes sense. But after doing that for 8 years or so, I eventually learned to accept the harsh truth about Performance Reviews:
They exist to gauge how well you are performing the MINIMUM expectations for the job.
Meaning, if you are meeting your deadlines 90% of the time and if you’re not screwing things up 90% of the time, you’re more likely to be tagged as a “good employee”. But what most employees don’t realize is that: EVERYONE is a good employee.
And because salary raises come from a fixed and limited budget, deciding who should get more becomes a very…VERY difficult task for your leaders. They know that everybody deserves a raise, but their hands are tied because they don’t have any say in the budget.
Meanwhile, you’re thinking about how “unfair” the company is for not recognizing your true value.
Now, some companies are toxic, some are just. You should not generalize because every company operates a little differently. It’s easy to think you’re being screwed over (as your sacrifices seem to be going nowhere). But that is not really the case.
It’s just how businesses operate *shrug*
The business and its processes are there to preserve the company’s longevity in the industry. Acknowledging your awesomeness, your value and your view of “equality” is not on top of their priority list. This is exactly why you should avoid tying your identity or self-worth to your job.
But I get it—this is not an easy trap to avoid.
You know you’re caught when you find yourself doing the following:
You avoid taking on risky projects that show your weakness as much as possible.
You wait to be told what to do (because you don’t wanna overstep your boundaries).
You avoid accountability because admitting to it tarnishes your mistake-free image.
In short, you’re (unconsciously) playing it safe.
Now, there isn’t anything wrong with playing it “safe”. It is a strategy that worked really well in the past. It’s not as effective today, though, because the world has also evolved really fast.
Doing all three got me laid off…
I then realized that job security does NOT come from playing defense—it comes from making yourself valuable.
And you cannot create value until you start playing offense.
Here’s what I mean…
#1 Act before you’re asked.
I once redesigned a product without permission.
This was a time when I was working for a small start-up manufacturing company. The “original designer” was our Salesperson. He is proud of his design. He prefers to keep things the way they are because it’s tried and proven. In manufacturing, the shop guys make fun of those who “fix things that are not broken”.
However, as a product designer for more than 5 years, I was pretty confident in my design skills that I decided to make minor tweaks to the design (without running it by our Salesperson). The move scared me a little bit. But I was prepared to provide an explanation if my design fails.
Production time came. He was like, “Did you do this?!”. I responded, “Uhh…yes..?” (waiting for the disappointment). But then he goes “I like it!”. Cha-ching! The risk I’ve taken paid off!
Since then, I’ve gotten in the habit of taking tiny calculated risks. And that habit helped me get more comfortable with taking risks.
Most people wait for permission. But value comes from initiative, not instructions.
#2 Volunteer for problems you’re not “qualified” for.
I had no programming background, but I offered to fix a broken Excel macro (created by an employee who is no longer with the company).
This is one of those issues that is not in the scope of IT or the Help Desk. It’s a “departmental issue”. The tool was created by someone in the department, used solely for the department. Therefore, if the tool starts to corrupt, it needs to be addressed by that department (not by the whole organization).
And because “management doesn’t seem to care”, I took that as an opportunity to see how well I can solve problems I’m not fully qualified for.
I asked my leader:
“My workload is a little light today. I’m wondering if I can play with that broken macro and figure out how to fix it? I don’t plan on spending a week on it. I’ll spend 4 hours and see if I can handle it. But if it takes longer than that, then I will leave it alone.”
I got a “Yes”.
But here’s the real reason why I offered to help (the reason why it’s a “calculated risk”):
Excel and coding forums are everywhere on Google. All I needed to do was type in the description of the problem, and answers would come up. From that point, all I needed to do was test the solutions I came across. After a few tries, I was able to fix it.
It was a bit of a trial and error, but it fixed the problem.
And when another Excel problem came up, I offered again to fix it. I took the same approach I took last time. And it worked! I did that again and again and again. Next thing you know, I became known as the “Macro Guy” in my department. The lesson?
Reputation doesn’t come from your resume—it comes from CONSISTENT results.
#3 Outperform what already exists.
Standard Operating Procedures exist to make sure you are doing your tasks properly. But because it’s a “standard”, ev-ery-one is doing it. And if everyone is doing it, then you are not standing out. Your move?
Outperform the standard (everyone is strictly following).
Of course, that sounds a lot easier said than done. It requires a little risk because you are changing something that is not “broken”. In other words, you are NOT fixing, you are OPTIMIZING.
And most corporate employees are unconsciously optimizing their processes.
Doing a task over and over and over naturally makes you very efficient at doing it. What used to take 3 hours now only takes 1 hour. The “shortcuts” magically show themselves.
The issue is that most employees like to keep their shortcuts to themselves. It’s what gives them “the edge”. So to keep yourself apart from that group—do the opposite: SHARE what you know.
But before you do that, you need to give yourself time to refine your “optimized” process and keep refining it to a point where it’s fail-proof. After that, show it to your leader and propose whether it’s something that can be rolled out to the department. And when you get the permission, train your colleagues to perform it as well as you do.
This is how you set yourself apart from everyone else who is stingy with their tips and tricks.
Taking little risks here and there by exploring and testing new solutions is your approach to setting new standards.
Playing offense at work provides more job security than playing defense.
Not a lot of employees realize that avoiding mistakes is a strategy for preserving value—it is NOT for increasing value.
Preserving your value to the company is an inefficient way to preserve your job security. Understand that your value, like money, diminishes over time. You have to figure out ways to continuously increase it.
And you do that by taking risks.
The more risks you take, the more you learn about what to do and/or what to avoid. The more mistakes you avoid and the more shortcuts you come up with, the more you’ll be perceived as an “expert”. Take initiative, solve problems, and fail forward.
This is how you increase your job security, not through fear, but through leverage.
P.S. If you’re looking for more tactics and strategies to play offense at work without risking your current track record, consider signing up for my newsletter as a FREE subscriber. It can help you: play offense and play smart without attracting too much attention. You’ll learn how to make yourself impossible to ignore while staying behind the scenes.