Career Management for the Evolving Workplace

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Career Management for the Evolving Workplace

• Sylvia Piggott
• Bologna, August 18, 2009

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FORMAT FOR HOUR

• THE CONTEXT
• THE WORKPLACE
• COMPETENCIES
• MANAGING YOUR CAREER
• THE FUTURE

3
The Context

• Continuous renewal of skills and competencies
• Continuous learning throughout career
• Rapidly changing work environment
• Four generations in the workplace

4
The Workplace
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Ultimate Workforce Requirement

• The world will require talented people
• With a suite of job appropriate competencies
• Flexibility and nimbleness to move with the
  times
• Succeed in a knowledge based enterprise.

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The Workplace -2

• Flatter with less emphasis on hierarchy
• Employees who can continuously adapt and grow
• Strong interpersonal skills
• Soft skills such as ethics, energy, motivation,
  innovation, seeing possibilities
• Continuous lifelong learning will be essential

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New Workplace

• Organizational culture must encourage
  questioning, especially of decision-makers
  assumptions propositions
• Must tolerate a certain amount of risk-taking and
  failure

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Demographic Mix

• Veterans born between 1920 1945
• Baby Boomers born between 1946-1964
• Generation X those born between 1965-1980
• Generation Y (Milennials)- those born post 1981

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The Demographic Context

• Veterans are mostly retired or part-time
• The near retired generation is very large and
  inhabited largely by Boomers
• Gen X is in the later worklife years and are
  planning for retirement
• The largest generation, the Millennials, are
  dominating the workforce and consumer market
  segment

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Born Post 1981 - the Milennials

• Net generation
• Grew up in the digital age -the collaboration
  generation who grew up interacting via the
  internet
• Spend time searching, reading, scrutinizing,
  authenticating, collaborating, organizing.
• They are active not passive
• Will dominate the 21st century

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Socialization of Milennials

• Feels entitled, invincible, superior
• Product of uber parenting solve their problems
  for them
• Culture of no loosers, everybody is a winner
• Be anything, do anything without starting at the
  bottom
• Nurtured on ego and narcissim
• Private life is an illusion

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Milennials Characteristics - 1

• They are skeptical of authority
• Have greater self-confidence but worried about
  their future - see the outside world as lacking
  opportunity
• Value individual rights to express views
• Oppose censorship by parents and governments
• Strong sense of the common good, social and civic
  responsibility

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Milennials Characteristics - 2

• Knowledgeable about investments and benefits
• Greater respect and celebration of diversity
• High expectation of self and employer
• Techno-Savvy group that questions everything
• Strong need for supervision and structure with
  constant feedback
• Desire flexibility and fun work environment
• Learning and self-improvement more important than
  money

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Milennial Characteristics - 3

• A greater desire for a balanced life
• Politically this group tends to be non-aligned
  and often describe themselves as independents
• Their learning styles are more diverse -
  experiential, auditory, physical, and graphical
  learners
• They are adaptive and flexible while preferring
  team and collaboration modes in their work.

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Working with Milennials

• They are smart, talented and resourceful. A
  successful strategy is to build on their
  strengths and provide learning opportunities to
  hone skills and competencies that they will need
  to be successful in the world they inhabit or
  will inhabit

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Milennial Influence

• Will vote on library and education issues,
  influence library strategies, control budgets,
  and dominate the consumer space
• They are critical to the future of libraries and,
  indeed, the future itself
• Thinking they are the same as other users is
  folly.
• Waiting for them to get it or self-correct is
  foolish.
• Ignoring the changes taking place is
  professional suicide

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Milennial Brain Development

• MRI research verify that their IQs, their raw
  ability to access and use their intelligence has
  grown markedly and at a level of statistical
  significance.
• Recent research shows that their physical
  abilities to read and their eye-movement patterns
  are different, not in a negative way.
• Have better team skills, speaking and
  articulation skills, as well as problem-solving
  and process management skills.
• Alternatively, they have weak general knowledge
  and fact skills. But facts decay rapidly today,
  e.g. , the number of planets has changed the
  maps of nations mutate on a seemingly daily
  basis most knowledge is quite malleable in
  context today
• So, access to facts and information on demand is
  a better solution in a complex world.

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Left Brain Right Brain

• Creative
• Imaginative
• General
• Intuitive
• Conceptual
• Big picture
• Heuristic
• Empathetic
• Figurative
• Irregular

• Analytical
• Logical
• Precise
• Repetitive
• Organized
• Scientific
• Detached
• Literal
• Sequential

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Some Ideas for Fostering Innovation

• I want to provide service A to Client B
• There is no budget for this programme
• Create an innovative service for this client
  using current resources

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COMPETENCIES
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Skills

• Personal and Interpersonal Communication
• Creative and Innovative Thinking
• Stress Management
• Negotiating and Persuading
• Service Orientation
• Teamwork, Coaching and Working with Others

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Skills

• Strategic Thinking and Visioning
• Change Management
• Business Analysis and Cognitive Capacity
• TECHNOLOGY SOCIAL AND BUSINESS

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Soft skills

• Integrity, Ethics and Values
• Insight and Judgment
• Developing Self and Others

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MANAGING YOUR CAREER
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Warning You are Naked on the Digital Highway

• Facebook
• Blogs some prospective employers ask for access
• Linkedin should describe your skills well
• Plaxo
• Search the web for yourself see what your
  digital footprint looks like and ensure you like
  it (Flicker, Google images, etc)

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Career Planning Questions

• How ambitious you are and what you want from your
  professional life ?
• How you are going to get there?
• What are your skill sets?
• Whom do you want to work for and where?
• What kind of lifestyle and what is your passion?

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When Career Planning is not going well - ask

• Am I doing the right things?
• Am I networking properly?
• Do I have the right skills?
• Has the market changed since I made my plan?
• Am I with the right employer?
• Has my employers mission or culture changed?

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Selling Yourself in One Minute

• Practice your self-pitch many times before you
  need it.
• Describe your impact in previous jobs and what
  you hope to accomplish next - not your resume.
• Be prepared to toot your own horn, gracefully
  brag gracefully
• Speak at a pace that shows your calm and
  confidence not babbling

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Key Learnings

• Must trust and engage with staff - combine team
  building with strategic and business planning
• Know what the boss and colleagues expect
• Align with strategy and direction of organization
• Egotism and reluctance to relinquish control can
  be fatal to career
• Look over the horizon to spot what lies ahead

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Humility is a Virtue

• On your way up pay attention to your strengths,
  they will be your weakness on your way down
• Learn to pay attention to your strengths and your
  weaknesses, depending on the circumstances you
  find yourself in they can be the same thing

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THE FUTURE
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Technology, Technology, Technology, aaaaaah!

• Nomadic and Multi-taskers using Mobile
  SmartPhones, PCs or location aware GIS/GPS
  services, wireless cloud based software
  unfettered from the ties that bound previous
  generations
• Cloud technology Zoho, Google Docs, Mash-ups
• This generation is growing up in a very noisy and
  media driven world clamoring for their attention.
  Learning young how to filter and choose what to
  pay attention to is a critical skill

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Workplace Now and the near Future -

• A significantly more mobile workforce.
• A workforce that is promoted more quickly into
  managerial work
• A workforce that is truly global and works
  regularly with people around the world.
• A workforce that is significantly more diverse.
• A workplace where multilingualism is valued.

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Workplace Now and the near Future - 2

• An organizational ethic where creativity and
  innovation are valued.
• A world where collaboration skills are measured
  and rewarded.
• A world where job mobility is quite extreme and
  some workers are employed by multiple employers

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Workplace Now and the Near Future 3

• Embedded InfoPros. - At-the-table, on rounds at
  hospitals, visit the Labs, and attend major unit
  and departmental meetings
• Design intranets that mirror each teams needs
  but offer personalized service customized to each
  team member.
• Aligned with the organizations major goals as
  well as being key professional resources
• Contribute to the quality of decision making
  through excellent understanding of and
  development of the enterprise systems like
  intranets.

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Involving Milennials

• How would you segment the client population?
• How would you deliver services to the various
  segments?
• What kind of growth ideas do you have for the
  information center?
• How could your ideas be sourced if we cannot get
  additional funds?
• Kinds of processes are needed to foster
  innovation?

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Involving Millenials

• What are some library uses of Facebook?
• What are some library uses of cloud technology?
• What are some uses of other social software?

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Library use for Facebook

• Connect with specific workgroups
• Promote events to clients from the Library

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Cloud Technology - Zoho uses in Library

• Document management
• On-line presentations
• Web conferencing

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Learning Points

• Ignore the side show keep your eye on the
  centre ring
• Fix the problem, forget the blame
• Play hardball when necessary
• Vent outside the tent
• Adjust to the moment
• Lead with humility

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Wrap - up
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Conclusions

• Bosses going to have to start focusing more on
  coaching rather than bossing
• Age of command and obey are no longer
  accommodated
• Traditional managers may have to move out of the
  management positions if they cannot adjust
• The continuum of learning and development is
  responsibility of individual

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CONCERNS

• Will our professions and institutions adapt to
  these changes quickly enough.
• Is the new professional prepared to build a new
  information and knowledge-based global economy.
• Are the expectations of our users increasing
  faster than our ability to adapt?

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A Winning Formula

• People are driven by achievement, affiliation,
  and power
• Be sure all of your employees are working on
  something meaningful and challenging
• Give them opportunities to work together and
  interact with others
• Ask for their input on how things should be done
  and give them the power to influence outcomes

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Facts to consider

• Web 2.0 and Information 3.0 are conversations
• We can all participate and influence the
  development of this next generation of the web.
• It is worth following and is one the most
  important conversations of our age and one whose
  impacts can be truly transformational on a global
  scale.
• Some of us will influence the building of this
  world especially those who can see how things
  should be, see the outcome
• Gen M will reside there for most of their lives.

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Something to remember

• The dinosaurs didnt go extinct because the
  climate changed. They disappeared because they
  couldnt adapt to the changes happening around
  them!

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FINALLY

• When you find yourself in a hole, the best thing
  you can do is stop digging.
• Warren Buffet

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GOOD LUCK YOU HAVE CHOSEN AN EXCITING
PROFESSIONGO FORTH AND ENJOYTHANKS
49
Bibliography

• Competency Based Training A Special Library
  Association (SLA) Strategic Professional
  Development Tool for the 21st century by Sylvia
  E.A. Piggott, Oslo, IFLA 2005 
• The "Millennials" Are Coming Morley Safer On The
  New Generation Of American Workers (CBS) This
  story was originally broadcast on Nov. 11, 2007.
  It was updated on May 23, 2008.
•  Motivating the "What's In It For Me" Workforce
  Manage Across the Generational Divide and
  Increase Profits by Cam Marston (Hardcover - May
  18, 2007)

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Bibliography - 2

• Connecting Generations The Sourcebook for a New
  Workplace by Claire Raines, Crisp Publications,
  2003 
• Managing the Generation Mix From Collision to
  Collaboration by Carolyn A. Matin and Burce
  Tulgan (Paperback - Jan 2002)

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Bibliography

• Millennial Behaviors Demographics, by Richard
  Sweeney, 2006
• http//www.library.njit.edu/staff-folders/sweeney/
  Millennials/Millennial-Behaviors-August-14-2006.do
  c
•  Born With A Chip, by Stephen Abram and Judy
  Luther, Library Journal, May 2004
• http//www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA411572.htm
  l
• Boomers, Gen-Xers, and Millennials Understanding
  the "New Students" by Diana Oblinger, Educause
• http//www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0342.pdf
  search22oblinger22