Archive for March, 2012

In our first two years of Next Generation of Government Training Summit, we found an interesting trend – a number of government agencies sent a whole cohort from a leadership program. By sending groups of 5, 10, or even 50, agencies have been able to quickly train their future leaders.

Additionally, we’ve found a number of other key advantages of sending a cohort:

-Critical mass for ideas – by having a large group of folks learning similar ideas, they can come back to their agency and have enough momentum to make real changes

-Tightens relationships between the cohort – By going through an experience like this together, members of a cohort strengthen their bonds which helps their working relationships to get work done when they get back to the office.

-Position yourself as an agency of choice – I received quite a few comments from Nextgen attendees where they said X agency must be awesome to work as they sent so many young feds to attend. By treating your young feds well, they are more likely to stay with your agency but also they will tell their friends and NextGen attendees will start looking at you as an agency of choice to work

If you are interested in sending a group, please email megan@govloop.com for special group discounts.

The government is facing a real workforce issue. Retirements were up 24% last year and at same time only 6% of college students would consider working for the federal government.

Thus, it is more important than ever to train and retain or current Gen X & Y government leaders. Government is investing more with the revamped PMF program and Pathways programs to bring in talent – now we need to make sure we connect, train, and retain these leaders

That is the core mission of the Next Generation of Government Training Summit

1) Tackling the Soft Skills – We recently asked supervisors and CHCOs what skills they wished the next generation leaders learned and it was mostly soft skills – improving communication skills (oral and written), improving political savviness (working across generations, navigating), and understanding the federal government (budget process to rules/regulations). We have sessions on all of these topics

2) Preparing for SES ECQs – We match our sessions so that it fits the SES executive core qualifications of leading change, leading people, results-driven, business acumen, business coalitions. By getting future leaders to think ahead, we are preparing the leaders agencies want to groom

3) Space for agency forums – If your agency would like to host a forum during NextGen, we can provide space. In the past, this has been a great opportunity to bring current and alumni of leadership programs together to solve problems and provide feedback and ideas on making your agency great to work for. Or simply attend to get ideas on how you can make your agency a workplace of the future for the next generation

4) Keeping People in Government – Young rising feds leave government mostly because they are frustrated. They came into government because they were passionate about public service but often aren’t reminded about the impact they are having. They rarely get an opportunity to meet others like them and truly sit down, learn, and solve problems together. Additionally, many of them may not like their current assignment and leave government instead of learning how to work with their boss on developing new skills or ask for new opportunities (from a new task, detail, or rotation)

Comment from last year: “I was ready to leave federal service before I came to Next Generation of Government Summit. I was burned out of my job and felt like there was no one like me in government. However, NextGen brought back the reason I came to public service and am happy to report I’m still in federal service and more committed than ever”