If you have been an employee, you know how hurtful it can be when someone boasts about their hardwork when it was you who contributed the most. In a competitve environment, it is not uncommon for colleagues to use diplomatic tactics in order to discredit you from the work that you did. According to Harvard Business Review, women get less credits than men when they work in a group. It is not that men don’t suffer from credit stealing. They do. Therefore there needs a pro-active measures which can prevent this problem from happening in the first place.
What to do if you have been discredited from your work?
Considering a scenario where you have been dislodged diplomatically from the contribution that you have done, there are few things that you can do in order to turn things in your favour.
- Evaluating the hardwork : – Whenever you find your name not being responsible for the hard work and ideas, it is important to evaluate how much you actually contributed. Expecting more recognition for minuscule amount of contribution may not be the best thing to do.
The same thing can be asked if your colleague took your idea but did everything from the scratch and invested their heart, soul. Upon achieving success, they may not credit for you anything.
Whatever the case, you need to evaluate your contribution unbiasedly before thinking of asking your credits. - Ask your colleague for an open discussion: – Once you know that your colleague has discredited you from the work that you did, it is important to have an open discussion with them. Ask for reasons why they did so. By doing so, you are allowing them to retract their mistake and resolve the issue without forcing you to raise it to the higher level which turns equation sour on most occasions. Remember that your action should not come from a place of anger as credit stealing is more acceptable in the workplace than showing anger.
- Raise it to the management: – If your colleague fails to recognise their mistake, then it is important for you to talk to the higher authorities and provide them all the evidences of your work input. These can include Email, drafts, notes, and feedbacks and conversations that you had related to the work.
Tactics to Avoid being discredited For Your Hardwork
There are many things that you can do so that nobody could even dare to steal your credits for the work you have done. The key things to do are the following
- Keeping Colleagues including your seniors aware : – It is vitally important to keep the main people in loop aware whenever you are assigned to a project where your performance could lead to promotion and higher payscale. Keep notifying your seniors about the work that you are contributing even if you do not share a decent equation with them.
If the project does not require confidentiality, then it is important to let know the assigned authority (for that project) about the work that you are putting in. The more people you keep in loop, a higher chance that your work will not be discredited. - Maintain a track record of the work: – Regular email updates to the concerned people highlighting your work input is a great way to ensure that any clever tactic will not rob you off the hardwork that you are putting in. Ccing your manager and other stakeholders gives clear transparency about the actual work that is done by everyone in the team. Keeping track of your notes, email, drafts and feedbacks will save a lot of time in resolving the conflict. The papertrail needs to have pinpoint information about the no.of hours you worked for an idea and its effect on the stakeholders.
- Keeping records of Social Media conversation with your colleagues: – You can also talk about your work on WhatsApp with your colleagues. The intent is to create a trail of conversation where it is clear about the work you are putting in. In a rare event of the loss of organization’s mails and data, you can prove your authenticity by showing the WhatsApp social media conversations with your colleagues to the higher authorities.
Why not to stay silent?
It may seem over-whelming to you to counter the claims of your colleague (for taking credits of your work) knowing that such conversation will create only office drama. However, you must remember that promotions and raises are given considering the job performances. You may stay silent for the time being only to see the credit stealer enjoying promotion, raises and center of attention later on. This is why it is important to raise the issue at the earliest.
