Nancy

Career Challenges, Opportunities Contribute to Employee Wellness

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OPM’s Federal Workforce Priorities Report for 2018 identifies employee health as an area it wants agencies to focus on to boost productivity at the organizational level.

However, physical health is just one aspect of the broader concept of wellness that helps drive success for both individuals and their agencies. Equally important is mental exercise. Lifelong learning – career development and engagement, in other words – challenging your brain, is an important part of staying “healthy.”

A 2012 study from Aon Hewitt notes that career opportunities are key to employee engagement. And, with 70% of US workers unengaged, seeing career development as a part of wellness is a must.

How do you know if your brain is challenged? Do you see your work as personally rewarding? Are you satisfied with the work that you do—do you feel like you are making a difference / contribution? If so, great! If not, then perhaps you can start to think about developing your career (and your brain).

There are many ways to develop without formal training or coursework, such as cross-training or “shadowing” with a co-worker to learn a new procedure, process, or system; coaching or mentoring; and self-analysis of values and interests so that when a learning opportunity presents itself, you’ll know if it’s something you want to pursue. Additionally, if your work doesn’t provide the volume of learning experiences you crave, consider volunteer work as a great way to learn, network, and keep yourself challenged.

You may also want to talk to your supervisor about creating an Individual Development Plan (IDP). Just doing something can help you start to feel better and more engaged. There are no regulatory requirements mandating employees complete IDPs within the Federal Government, although many employee and leadership development programs require IDPs. Completing IDPs is considered good management practice, and many agencies have developed their own IDP planning process and forms.

While there is no one “correct” form for recording your development plan, an effective plan should include, at minimum, the following key elements:

  • Profile – name, position title, office, grade/pay band
  • Career goals – short-term and long-term goals with estimated and actual completion dates
  • Development objectives – linked to work unit mission/goals/objectives and your development needs and objectives
  • Training and development opportunities – activities you will pursue with estimated and actual completion dates. These activities may include formal classroom training, web-based training, rotational assignments, shadowing assignments, on-the-job training, self-study programs, and professional conferences/seminars
  • Signatures – both you and your supervisor should sign and date
  • A way to track your progress. Its not enough to just have a piece of paper (or electronic form). You should track your progress on meeting your goals.

While not a panacea for all ills, knowing where you are going and how you can get there will go a long way to meeting your personal wellness goals.

What if Your Agency Doesn’t Fund Training?

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Given budget pressures, many organizations are struggling to provide formal training for their employees. In fact, OPM’s 2018 Federal Workforce Priorities Report states that 88% of agencies struggle to provide needed training.

Given the very real difficulties many employees find getting the training and development they need, here are some DIY ideas for ensuring your developmental needs are met:

  • Look at your performance plan and the standards against which you are rated. In a perfect world, you should sit down with your rating official and discuss what good performance looks like. The next step of course is to identify areas where you think you might be able to improve and write them down.
  • Seek feedback from your supervisor, colleagues and subordinates. All of us need feedback to identify our strengths and areas for improvement. After a major project or presentation, ask for one thing you did well and one thing that you can improve. Try to solicit a variety of opinions so that you can see if a theme develops. Be sure to thank those who offered opinions.
  • Start keeping track of your feedback in a notebook, online system, or file. You may also want to consider grading yourself. If your job requires analytical skills, writing skills, interpersonal skills, and organization skills, how would you grade yourself in each? Focus on areas where you have rated yourself the lowest.
  • Pay attention to what your agency is interested in. If there are areas that are increasing in focus, while other areas are fading into the background, note them and make sure you have the skills needed for the future. Do what you can to focus on the future needs of your organization.
  • Get a mentor or a coach. If your organization has a formal mentoring program, use it. If not, try to find an informal mentor. Getting unbiased advice and guidance on the stops to take to enhance your skills can be invaluable.
  • Put together an Individual Development Plan (IDP). If your agency has a formal process for creating an IDP, use it! If not, nothing prevents you from putting together your own IDP. Writing things down will help hold yourself accountable. There are many free resources that you can take advantage of online. Many agencies have contracts / access to free online courses—use them! And, if you have a thoughtful, job-related IDP, your agency just might be more amenable to funding at least a small part of it.

No one cares more about your career than you do. Take the time to adequately and truthfully assess your skills vis-à-vis your current and stretch jobs and take proactive steps to take your career to the next level!

OPM Asking Agencies to Prioritize Continuous Professional Growth

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In its 2018 Federal Workforce Priorities Report OPM has said it wants agencies to provide employees with ample opportunities for continuous professional growth and skill development. Regardless of the extent to which agencies make new opportunities available, it’s a worthy goal and one you should be take seriously.

Yes, assignments might take you outside your comfort zone (that’s a good thing), and yes, those assignments might be collateral to your existing duties. However, they can also be growth opportunities that will enhance your exposure to others in your organization as well as teach you new skills. And to maximize the effectiveness of those opportunities, research has shown that those experiences are most effective when:

  • You had one-on-one meetings with your immediate manager to discuss how to apply the development in your specific role.
  • You perceived that your manager endorsed and supported this specific opportunity.
  • You expected to be recognized or in some other way rewarded for applying what you learned.

Perhaps that list will jog you imagination as to what to look for. Also, don’t forget that volunteer leadership or growth roles can provide the same benefits. Just because it’s not formal training, does not mean that it doesn’t “count” or can’t help you move forward in your career.

In fact, consider this quote from Michael M. Lombardo and Robert W. Eichinger and the Center for Creative Leadership’s The Career Architect Development Planner, a classic book on how to become an effective leader:

“Development generally begins with a realization of current or future need and the motivation to do something about it. This might come from feedback, a mistake, watching other people’s reactions, failing or not being up to a task – in other words, from experience. The odds are that development will be about 70% from on-the-job experiences – working on tasks and problems; about 20% from feedback and working around good and bad examples of the need; and 10% from courses and reading.”

In essence, what this is saying is that adult learners learn best by doing. This does not render formal training ineffective, however, we should not ignore the very real and positive effects of developmental assignments, details, task force assignments, and the like, on our learning.

Pro Tip: Don’t Copy Language from your Resume into LinkedIn

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LinkedIn is great for networking and job search but there are certain features you want to be careful with or avoid all together. One of the ones you want to avoid is actually controlled by a setting within Microsoft Office 356, allowing language from your LinkedIn profile to be used in Microsoft Word’s Resume Assistant feature – that is, for other MS Office users to access language from your LinkedIn profile.

Resume Assistant is available to Microsoft 365 users who are Office Insiders, and allows you to see work experience examples and skills descriptions from public LinkedIn Profiles. This means that the hard work you have done to create your unique profile may show up in Resume Assistant and become parts of other jobseekers’ resumes. In other words, Resume Assistant provides content from LinkedIn users to help you develop your resume. You will not be able to identify the names of the people whose content you are seeing. Resume Assistant It will also show you potential jobs that meet your criteria.

While this might not bother you if you’re trying to create a resume, if you are job hunting and have spent time, effort, and perhaps money to develop your resume, you may not want other people stealing / using that content for free. And if the content is used often enough, your content might become boilerplate language for other resumes.

Bottom line: Be aware that LinkedIn now has a feature where your profile can be extracted into a Word document by other LinkedIn users.

Here is how to make sure this setting is turned off:

  • Go to your “Settings” section.
  • Click on “Privacy.”
  • You will see the option for “Microsoft Word.” Click on that.
  • Make sure the setting is then changed to “No.”

Further, you should never copy and paste your resume into your LinkedIn profile where that language could be copied. Let lots of people see your LinkedIn profile, but only give your resume to people you target.