Today’s workplace has changed at an accelerated rate as we have grown in the digital age of information. Resources like online colleges, Google, and millions of information blogs and outlets make learning new information or finding ways to do your job more easily accessible. A corporate citizen today can be successful if they are able to do an extensive amount of research, garner great relationships with coworkers, and challenge the status quo for the company that they work for in all fields. Any employee with those three skills applied accurately and persistently will find themselves skyrocketing in their career with ease and only minor difficulties.

Research is the pinnacle of all jobs today. Most companies do not have an adequate training program that will fully prepare new employees for the rigors of their role. Employers now seem to have expectations that previous experience, education, and life lessons have given the new employee some direction as to how to do the role they were hired for; even for entry level positions! With this reality, new employees must be able to do research before asking colleagues and superiors at work how to complete a task. You hear more and more in the workplace “did you Google it?” because there is an expectation that you can look up most answers nowadays. Additionally, with the information age, many of the problems that we face have been solved by someone else if not exactly, very closely and those solutions provide a template for the employees’ problem to be solved. Research helps to show that employees take initiative and are willing to work for an answer instead of expecting someone else to do it. There are some notable exceptions to this of course: manufacturing jobs (assembly lines), highly process/technique driven jobs (medical procedures), and high-risk jobs (some types of engineering). In those situations, research can still be used but typically only after one has used the accepted process extensively and is now an “expert” on this process in order to offer improvement suggestions based on the research that they’ve done.

Relationships with your co-workers – the social pecking order – is now more important in the workplace than ever before. Just being the best, having the most tenure, being groomed for the role, or any other skills/situations an employee has can be completely eclipsed by the lack of or conflicting workplace relationships. Unfortunately, who you know can be more important than what you know. This truism means that employees have to spend time throughout their work life networking and showing others that they care about what they are doing. There is a fine line for too much socializing and relationship building. For instance, intimate relationships in the workplace tend to have cataclysmic problems and are not encouraged although inevitable. Excessive socializing can negatively impact work performance and make one unsuccessful at their job. However, when you are dealing with a difficult problem that you’ve thoroughly researched and need to calibrate your thoughts with someone else, having a good relationship can make it easier for that person to help you. When it’s time for promotions, employers will consider the impact of promoting someone that is disliked versus someone that is well liked.

The career environment that we see ourselves in today is changing as fast as technology and innovation change along with it. The employee who is able to innovate and say, “can we try a different way to do this than what we’ve done in the past?” will stand out and have the chance to be more successful at their job. The workplace of the past focused on developing processes that worked and lead to higher overall profits and success metrics. Those processes have gotten dated and almost all employers know that they need a new way to do things but also know that they haven’t hired the person who has that next idea yet. Thus, when the lowly intern mentions a new software that they’ve used or the socialite of the office talks about the newest social media that can help spread their ideas or the technocrat in the office mentions the cost savings of some new equipment, employers are more responsive. Anything that can be suggested that improves the bottom line is generally accepted.

The challenging workplaces that we find ourselves in require us to be a different kind of employee. Research, networking, and innovation help an employee stand up and then stand out in a crowd of competition so that they can be successful. The market is getting more and more saturated with qualified individuals and employers are looking for the next Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Simon Sinek to be the instrument of change.