Career Mobility Boosts Employee Engagement

A culture that emphasizes career mobility boosts employee engagement and more efficiently achieves agency success by empowering each worker to move into roles that they’re passionate about and for which they’re well-suited.

But how can government organizations make the necessary adjustments to be more fluid in their workforce decisions? How do human capital managers align employees’ skills and aspirations with the agency’s overall mission? Read on to discover some best practices for creating a culture of career mobility, and learn how it can strengthen your team’s overall impact.

Give stakeholders a window into employee skills and goals

Employee portals with profiles and career aspiration sections can give HR and executives direct and honest insights about what their workforce wants. Another strategy that should be carried out alongside portals is for managers to have continuous, ongoing conversations with their team to discuss strengths and weaknesses, their performance, and how they can best create a positive, engaging work experience.

This approach will shine a light on what workers really want and which training courses need to be offered in order to help them realize their career potential. These will help workers boost their capabilities to more quickly climb their current career ladder, or find a ladder that they’re more passionate about.

Facilitate learning

I mentioned above how agencies can offer learning and training initiatives to employees to address skills gaps so they can take the next step in their careers. This enables organizations to maximize the capabilities of their workforce by ensuring each member is in a role that blends their own aspirations with those of their agency. So, how can stakeholders make learning an impactful, lifelong endeavor?

By making it engaging and innovative.

Leverage a variety of formats and technologies to ensure that each learner gets the full experience. Strategically assign courses to employees based on their goals. Internal social networks have the power to foster collaboration, lead to exchanges of critical ideas, and capture vital knowledge that can be shared with the team or stored for future use.

Be excited about shuffling the deck chairs

Career mobility is centered on optimizing your workforce’s capabilities to drive engagement and increase productivity. This means, of course that employees will take on new roles, responsibilities, titles, and career options. Rather than feel nervous about how these big changes will affect the team, be excited about your agency’s newfound approach to achieving mission success.

Career mobility increases productivity and engagement because employees will be in a position that is just right for them, one that mixes their own skills and passions with the organization’s broader vision. If an employee assists on community outreach projects but wishes to increase their competencies in that avenue, career mobility can be the catalyst that makes this happen. Your outreach team will soon have another highly engaged and spirited go-getter to utilize; when this cultural shift is applied to the whole agency, career mobility becomes the rising tide that lifts all boats.

Career mobility drives productivity and engagement by empowering employees to train for a role that aligns their passions and skills with the agency’s purpose.

• Step 1: Give stakeholders the tools to find out what their workforce really wants.
• Step 2: Offer strategic, targeted, and impactful training courses to help prep workers for any desired new skills.
• Step 3: Welcome new responsibilities and functions for your team.

When every person on the team feels like they have their dream job, it can have a dramatic impact on mission success.

Jim Gill is part of the GovLoop Featured Blogger program, where we feature blog posts by government voices from all across the country (and world!). To see more Featured Blogger posts, click here.