Why credit grabbing needs to stop and the 3 moves you must do

While many employees are unfortunately aren't spared from credit grabbing from their teammates , or worse their bosses, most never do anything about it. They mostly do any of these things:

a) Get shocked at the boss' omission, mope, and think of covert (and sometimes even criminal) ways to get back at the credit grabbing boss (Poison his food? Hack at her emails and release them via WikiLeaks?)

b) Resign and venture into greener pastures, applying the old adage, if you can't take the heat (or office politics), get out of the kitchen

c) Get shocked and stay shocked, accepting reality that you are just a cog in this corporate machine where you will always do the work while somebody will always bask in glory

d) Think of ways to turn the situation to their advantage (e.g., blackmail the boss into promoting you)

e) All of the above

But seriously, employees need to do something to stop credit grabbing. After all, the situation proves to be stressful to them, especially to those new in the organization. Once this behavior of non-recognition becomes rampant, people will get demotivated and soon enough, they will start leaving one by one.

Furthermore, the demotivation among unrecognized employees is most likely to cause a chain reaction. When one employee starts to feel a plummet in his or her self-worth, that employee is most likely going to tell a teammate or colleague, which then cause entire teams to have low work morale.

Action regarding credit grabbing is particularly crucial for employees climbing the corporate ladder, as projects that go uncredited will also mean less reasons for the employee to be considered for a promotion. After all, going a notch higher in rank is not only dependent on factors such as tenure, but other more crucial factors such as performance, which is primarily dependent on projects.

Having said that, here are the first three steps you should take when you feel like your boss is getting credit for all your hard work:

1. Ascertain things first

Your first thought should never be that your boss is out to grab all the credit due to you. Don't assume that your boss' actions are intentional. There are managers that communicate in such a way that they may sound like they take ownership, but that is just their style in sharing with other people.  This can be a bad habit your boss may have developed through the years or just an oversight on his or her part. Which leads us to the second action point.

2. Time for a heart-to-heart

The sooner you approach your boss regarding the matter, the better. Time in this case does not make the heart grow fonder, but actually only festers additional resentment. Begin and end the conversation on a positive note, without accusing your boss of credit grabbing. In fact, do not ever mention anything of that sort, but instead phrase your statements in such a way that would talk about the project, how you worked hard for it, and how, in the presentation or company-wide email, you were not credited. Then, ask why this happened instead of stating that your boss or whoever took away recognition that should have been yours.

3. Moving forward, document everything

In any discussion, issue, or debate, the camp with evidence, especially documented ones, always get the upper hand. Keep good records of minute meetings and email exchanges so that you'll have something to present when you're asked to provide more information on your extent of participation on a certain project.

There are various more steps you can do to make sure you'll never be put in an awkward position of when it comes to not getting credited for your efforts again, as we'll continue to tackle this issue in the coming weeks.

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