As a rising government leader, it takes courage to ask for professional development from your manager especially in times of tight budgets.
But you shouldn’t be afraid as we’ve found that managers are receptive to training if you provide them clear examples of ROI – what you’ll learn and how it’ll benefit the agency. We’ve purposely planned the Next Generation of Government Summit to be the most practical training event for rising government leaders to help them develop the tactical and leadership skills they need.
Here are 10 reasons why your agency should send you Next Generation of Government Summit 2011. Feel free to use these tips and share with your managers and HR teams.
1. Improve Performance Immediately w/ Tactical Skills – With this training conference, attendees will learn tactical skills that will improve performance immediately when they return back to work. Last year, we covered topics like how to be a better public speaker, create excellent powerpoint presentation for senior leaders, manage staff as well as managing up, and project management.
2. Develop Leadership Capacity – NGG11 has tons of sessions focusing on developing future leaders (and taking young leaders to higher levels quicker) that are essential as government faces a greying workforce – from mentoring sessions with SESers to sessions on innovation, career coaching and career advice.
3. Leverage Best Practices & Build a Network of Government Innovators – There’s no reason agencies should work in silos. There are a ton of best practices across government and tons of passionate government employees doing great work that we can learn from. At NGG11, our speakers highlight best practices in a range of essential topics from IT to HR to acquisition to project management that you can take back and leverage in your agency. Further, we spend a lot of time connecting attendees with each other so they come out of the training with a network of other government innovators that they can reach out and call when they need help on specific projects.
4. Energize and Engage Staff – Every agency wants an energized and inspired staff. Last year, our attendees stated that one of the best parts of NGG10 was being around other passionate, engaged government employees. Many attendees mentioned that the conference reminded them of why they came to serve and went back to their agency even more motivated and committed to public service.
5. Connect your Talented Core – Many agencies (for example TSA, SSA and GSA) sent 10, 20, up to 50 of their rising leaders last year. By going as a cohort, these folks connected and built great bridges internally that helped connect the agency across departments and institutionalize the ideas learned at NGG.
6. It’s Designed by Managers to Meet your Needs – In addition to the founders who are leading young government networks, this year we’ve beefed up the advisory board to include more senior leadership from GS-15 program managers, SES HR leaders, political appointees, and Federal Executive Board leads. These managers are shaping the agenda with sessions they want their staff to learn.
7. Enhanced Health & Financial Knowledge – Agencies want physically and financially healthy employees. At NGG11, we have sessions focused on living a healthy lifestyle from exercising to healthy eating as well as financial literacy on tips like managing TSP, buying a home, child care, and health insurance.
8. Retain Your Gen Y Leaders – #1 request for Gen Y is more professional development opportunities. By training your team, you increase their job satisfaction leading to increased retention. Further, it is anticipated that Gen Y leaders will change jobs 10-12 times in their career, changing approx. every 2 years. Send your staff and they’ll meet other awesome feds that may one day be looking for new opportunities in your office.
9. Meets Training Requirements – Many individuals have training requirements whether it’s for Presidential Management Fellowship hours or for a PMP certificate. The NGG attendees will receive CEUs and training certificates certified by Graduate School that count towards these requirements.
10. It’s Affordable – Most trainings are in the $800-$2,000 price range. We’ve made this training as affordable as possible (while still ensuring awesome quality, great training, space, materials, and speakers)
These are just 10 reasons your agency should send you to NGG11…There’s another 50 more. But trust me – this will be the most useful training of the year.
