Want to find purposeful work? Try these tips.
Millennials are good examples – they choose meaningful work over money. Millennials often have two jobs – one that brings in money, and one that is meaningful. Often, when people take this route to finding purposeful work, the source of income and the source of meaning start to merge. Millennials are also good at multi-tasking, so they thrive on variety.
There are many benefits to purposeful work, including psychological wellness, productivity and creativity.
Generally speaking, finding purposeful work depends on four contributions:
- Give back. By serving others, you find purpose.
- Contribute to family. Identifying how you can best serve your family and close friends brings enjoyment.
- Commit to the future. We need to grow. Practicing self-improvement in order to reach a better future motivates us.
- Code of ethics. Develop a set of values and steadfastly follow them.
Finding the passion to contribute to yourself, your family and friends, as noted above, moves you forward to a future of purposeful work.
Stealth Startup
It’s a very intriguing name for Obama’s quest to recruit top talent from the likes of Google and Facebook. While this article in Fast Company is long, it’s a very interesting one, focusing on the mission of these top recruits – to “reboot” how government works.
Most of these recruits are young professionals that were on successful career tracks with public companies. What made them take a salary cut, move from one coast to another and work for the government is brilliantly explained in this article. Without a doubt, the transfixing power of creating technology that will make life easier for millions of people, had a lot to do with the decision to take a technology job in Obama’s administration. The article explains what inspires these young men and women and helps us more fully understand their work ethics.
We highly recommend that you put some time aside at lunch, or at the end of the day to read the entire article, but here are some of the high points.
- Healthcare.gov – remember when the site just didn’t work? People were getting locked up and the site froze from too many visitors. It wasn’t the result of a dearth of engineering talent in the DC area, but rather the technique they used to build the site. Instead of one huge project, the fix-it team rolled out the site in stages – testing it, improving it and repeating the process to get the right outcome. It’s a strategy used by most public companies in order to build software that works. It’s called building “agile” software.
- Making Government Work Better – The young people recruited for these government projects aren’t just software engineers, but according to the article, “they’re data scientist, user-experience gurus, product managers and design savants.” Making the user experience better on any platform is what they strive for. “Fixing bugs” for software companies is not very inspirational. But solving problems that have plagued the government for years is both satisfying and intriguing. These young professionals are uniquely capable of handling these “planet-sized” websites, since they’ve worked on huge sites solving various problems while creating extraordinary growth for their former companies.
- Changing Minds About the Slowness of Government – According to this group of talented professionals, “Everything else is getting done faster.” The technology industry is built on the belief that processes can become twice as efficient every two years. Because that belief is so integral to their work, these professionals have a hunger for increased performance. If what we do online every day is completed far faster than before, then the same should be true for the Federal government.
- Washington, the “Go-To” Place for Technology Gurus – The folks now being lured to DC are arguably among the very best. Talent is extremely important, but so is attitude, patience, collaboration and the ability to work within the structure of the government. According to the article, candidates are screened for EQ – that is, emotional intelligence. The workload within the Federal Government is huge. Can this team create enough momentum, before Obama’s second term ends, to achieve a stable environment and re-energize government agencies?
These technology gurus believe they’ve already had an impact. They can gauge improvement on various sites – from the Immigration site to the Veterans website. Interestingly enough, the recruitment team is not expecting these young professionals to make a career out of the Federal Government. But rather to enlist them for a year or two to accomplish real change. As a result, there is now a third option open to technology gurus – a start-up, a big company and now, Washington.
Tip: Making Incremental Changes
The healthcare.gov site successfully deployed by making incremental changes, testing the changes and making improvements. Can this process of incremental change work at your organization? Here are some thoughts that might lead to success.
- Making incremental changes is not as disruptive and typically does not significantly threaten existing structures.
- Incremental changes are typically slower, but can move a team steadily forward. Incremental gains prove better than none at all.
- Often, the magnitude of a change will dictate how employees react. Employees will often react positively to a change that does not cause them to move too far from what they know.
- Incremental change is often determined by the gap between the current state and where you want to end up. If the gap is large, incremental changes may not be possible. But incremental changes require less change management – you’re asking your employees to make a smaller leap from what they know, to what they are comfortable with.
Change and change management can be taught. LMJA works with organizational challenges. If you need help or would like to discuss your options, give us a call at 301-670-0051, or email me at Leadership@lmja.com.
Tip: The Secret to SMART Goals
Most goals aren’t SMART – not because they are hard to write, but because most people don’t ask enough questions. Follow these steps to create clear and specific goals!
- Write your goal. Then ask: Is this goal as detailed as you can make it?
- Define how you will measure your progress. Do the steps you’ve created set a clear path from where you are today to where you want to be?
- In order for a goal to be achievable, there should be periodic checkpoints leading up to the goal. What milestones can you expect to reach to ensure that the goal you set stays on track?
- Make sure that you have the tools you need to accomplish your goal. Is training needed? Does your employee have time to do the necessary work? What will you do if individuals don’t respond?
- Set a date to reach your goal – one that is reasonable and within reach. Do you have updates scheduled during that time period? It’s more likely that the goal will be accomplished if there are intermediate activities that must be met.
When goals are achieved in the workplace there’s a feeling of control and fulfillment. Employees are more likely to feel empowered and more satisfied in their work. If you need help setting SMART goals to achieve standards mandated throughout your organization, please give us a call at 301-670-0051. Let’s discuss your needs.
Telework – What Happens?
What happens when employees telework? Since telework has become an important organizational change, not only in the Federal Government but also in the private sector, it’s important for all organizations to envision the success of the effort and measure the results. In a recent report, “Status of Telework in the Federal Government – Report to Congress,” the US office of Personnel Management noted an improvement in employee attitude as a result of telework capabilities.
Measuring the Improvement in Employee Attitude. The Federal Employment Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) shows the potential for telework to influence important employee attitudinal and perceptual variables. The survey looked at employees who telework, those who don’t because of a barrier of some sort, and those who do not telework by choice. Demonstrated in the report is the value of autonomy – “I get to make the decision, to telework or not.” When employees have a choice, job satisfaction increases. Those employees who face barriers to telework reported lower job satisfaction scores. Typically, their attitudes toward the organization and their supervisors are less positive.
Academic research indicates that telework program participants are more likely to exhibit job satisfaction and improved performance. The FEVS survey noted similar findings. There was a larger percentage of teleworkers who reported satisfaction with their jobs than those who were not able to telework. In 2011, those figures were 75% vs 68%, and in 2012 the figures were 73% vs 65%. The survey seems to suggest that existence of telework policies benefits the entire workforce in indirect but positive ways.
In the 2012 FEVS survey, 68% of the respondents reported satisfaction with their jobs. And 15% reported dissatisfaction. The results also show that there is a decline in the percentage of job satisfied employees between 2012 (68% ) and 2011 (71%). This general decline is also reflected in a comparison of teleworker job satisfaction data – reporting 68% job satisfaction in 2011 and 65% in 2012.
Please click on the chart below for more information on job satisfaction.
Tip: Managing Teams
Last month we provided a few tips on successful teleworking. Here are some key tips on Managing Teams.
- Train your team. While you may feel that your employees should know their job, training your employees for working on a team will help build successful teams.
- Keep your team focused. Putting a team together, and then not following up on their progress is asking for trouble. Instead, install a project management system or some type of follow-up plan that allows you to keep the team focused and on task. Your time will be well-spent; your team will be successful.
- Create a timeline. What is your vision? Working with the team, create quarterly touch points. Breaking a project down by quarters makes it easier to reach intermittent goals – assuring success for the overall project.
If you would like more information on Development issues, including Teamwork and Management, please give LMJA Associates a call at 301-670-0051 or email us at Leah@LMJA.com.
Teleworking: Report To Congress
In a report to the Congress on the status of telework in the Federal Government, efforts to promote telework were reported. As a rule, agencies are tasked with promoting telework efforts. Each agency has the opportunity to select from a list of efforts, as well as to detail the specific nature of these efforts. You can see below that emphasizing telework as a part of COOP is the most commonly selected option. Many agencies also made use of agency-wide techniques such as emails and meeting to advocate for telework. See below for more information.
| Agency Management Efforts to Promote Telework in 2011 and 2012** | ||
| In what ways has your agency’s management promoted your telework program | No. of agencies in 2011 | No. of agencies in 2012 |
| Aligns telework with agency strategic goals and mission | 35 | 41 |
| Advocates telework in agency-wide meetings (e.g., all-hands meetings) | 45 | 46 |
| Uses telework goal-setting and measurement hold managers accountable | 12 | 15 |
| Emphasizes telework as part of COOP (Continuity of Operations Plan) events | 66 | 68 |
| Conducts special telework events (e.g., telework awareness weeks, telework drills) | 26 | 32 |
| Transmits agency-wide emails of support | 40 | 43 |
| Develops signs/posters | 13 | 16 |
| Other | 25 | 32 |
| Our agency has not taken action to specifically promote telework in the past year | 10 | 9 |
** This information was taken from the United States Office of Personnel Management Report on the “Status of Telework in the Federal Government.”