Being a top employee can significantly improve your chances of having a more successful and lucrative career. If you want to become a top employee yourself, there are certain traits you can learn to put yourself at the top. Here is a list of a few important ones.

1. A Willingness To Learn Anything From Anyone
The first way to become a top employee is to have a willingness to learn anything from anyone. If you have this type of attitude, you’ll improve your work relationships and work related skills. No matter how good you think you might be at something, it’s important to remember that you can always improve and learn new things.

Learn how to graciously accept correction and criticism from your subordinates, coworkers, and superiors. If other people understand that you can deal with correction and criticism in a healthy way, you’ll receive helpful advice and guidance from unexpected places. If instead you decide to be stubborn and take criticism and correction personally, people will be less willing to help you out and point you in the right direction.

2. Well Dressed And Groomed
Most guys usually aren’t too enthusiastic about dressing and grooming well, but it can have a big impact on your career. By dressing well, you convey many positive things about yourself as an employee.

• You care about how you present yourself at work
• You’re professional and presentable
• You represent your employer more positively
• You’re confident enough to dress well
• Wearing different clothes when at work will put you a work mindset

These benefits can help take your career to the next level when combined with all of the other things on this list. If you’re unsure about how to dress well at your work place take a look around your office to see how other people are dressed. After getting an idea of what would be the most appropriate type of clothing to wear, go shopping and improve your wardrobe to create a more positive image of yourself at work. If you hate shopping or just don’t know what to get, bring a fashion conscious friend with you or ask store employees for help.

The purpose of grooming well is to look clean and smell clean. You don’t ever want to wear dirty clothes or have smelly breath at work, as it can make it more difficult to work effectively with your coworkers. To be well groomed, make sure you take care of the following things:

• Shower daily
• Brush and floss daily (don’t be afraid to brush and floss after lunch too)
• Trim your nails
• Keep your facial hair under control
• Wear clean and wrinkle free clothing
• Use deodorant or antiperspirant if you have arm pit odor
• Use insoles or sprays if you have foot odor

Being well dressed and well groomed will have a positive dual effect on your career. It will make others think more highly of you and will make you think more highly of yourself.

3. Solid Work Ethic
Having a solid work ethic is one of the most important parts of being a top employee, the problem is that it isn’t always easy to develop and maintain one. Having a solid work ethic requires discipline, dedication, and a positive attitude. Because it takes so much to have a solid work ethic, it is a very valuable trait to have. With a solid work ethic, you will be seen as a dependable, responsible, and hard working member of your work force. Having these qualities will make you a top employee and help you advance your career.

4. Good Communication Skills
If you want to be a top employee, you need to have excellent communication skills. No matter what line of work you’re in, it is important to be able to communicate with other people both clearly and efficiently. The benefits of having good communication skills are numerous:

• Better interpersonal relationships with coworkers
• Increased productivity
• More persuasive and assertive speaking
• More approachable

In order to improve your communication skills, it’s important to get a lot of practice. If you’re naturally introverted, and don’t spend much time with other people, put yourself in situations where you’re forced to practice your communication skills. The following tips can be used just as well for extroverts as introverts to improve communication skills.

• Join a club or group
• Volunteer around your community
• Get a part time job

Following these tips will help improve your communication skills in a big way. It’s a pretty simple concept, the more practice you get, the better you will become, so try something new and improve your communication skills to help you become a top employee.

5. Effective Team Player
Being an effective team player is an important part of being a top employee. Almost all jobs involve working with other people, so it is important to be able to communicate and work effectively with your coworkers. If you don’t have the skills or attitude to be a team player, your performance and image at work will suffer. To be an effective team player, you have to be able to do certain things:

• Pull your own weight
• Communicate well with your coworkers
• Help others when needed
• Be humble enough to ask for help when needed
• Work toward a common goal

If you’re selfish, lazy, or incompetent, your value as an employee will drop significantly. Also, when working in teams, if you don’t pull your weight, it can be easy to be left behind by your coworkers. Even if you have the desire to work hard later on, you’ll have to spend more time just to catch up.