How to make yourself completely indispensable in Regulatory Affairs?

In today‘s marketplace it is more important than ever to continuously develop yourself professionally and secure your future in Regulatory Affairs business.

Your goal should be to become so good, that no matter what happens in your department your position will be secure and your boss will consider you too valuable to lose.

So how is this done?

First, it takes time to develop yourself professionally and become an indispensable expert, admired by peers, consider reliable and good.

Second, you cannot cheat your way to it. It requires your continuous commitment and hard work. However, it is definitively worth it in the long run.

Here are couple of tricks to keep in mind:

1. Be Enthusiastic

You should be enjoying working in Regulatory Affairs field. If you are not, this will be clear to everyone around you very quickly and usually will result in people not enjoying working with you.

Enjoying your work will make you enthusiastic about it. It will equip you with energy to deal with everyday tasks and to take on new tasks. This will be noticed by your boss right away since you will stand out as someone who gladly solves problems without his/her help instead of continuously asking for guidance.

2. Make Yourself The Expert

We get new Regulatory Affairs projects all the time. If asked to lead a new project, don’t hesitate, use that opportunity to stand out, lead and learn new things.

Don’t be afraid of new experiences and steep learning curve. Remember, everything worth having requires time and effort.

For example, if your company is insourcing a new data management system to store all Regulatory Affairs information on approved products, be a designated person to be involved.

This is especially important for new trends coming up. For example, preparation for the new Clinical Trial Regulation that will bring changes to the ways how clinical trials are submitted and approved in Europe.

3. Make Friends

Take some time to meet and talk to people in your department and outside of it.

Yes, work needs to be done, but it is done by people.

If you concentrate only on work you miss the big part of the equation that focuses on „soft skills“ involving social intelligence.

People tend to form and gather into social circles, also in workplace. It is important to recognize these in your organization and get involved. This is the only way you can be considered as „in-person“.

4. Be The Initiator

Regulatory Affairs falls into the spending department, meaning its functioning always exclusively spends money from company’s budget and doesn’t earn it back per se.

This means that each year your Regulatory Affairs department will get an allocated budget to spend (usually based on last year’s spending and forecasts) and earlier or later senior Regulatory Affairs management will be asked to try to spend less while producing more.

It is always a good idea to suggest new initiatives to your boss that consider this aspect. Doing something new or in a new way that saves time or money will make your boss look good and he/she will never forget the initiative came from you.