VOLUME 56 NO.9 - 0CTOBER 1997USDANEWS VOLUME 56 NO.9 - 0CTOBER 1997
But YOU Still Manage Your Career
by Ron Hall, Office of Communications
What's in a name?
A lot--especially if it signifies a change of mission. That's what happened recently to USDA's Career Transition Resource Center, located in the Department's South Building in Washington, DC.
It is now called USDA's Career Management Resource Center.
"That's significant," advised Marge Brining, a personnel management specialist in the Office of Human Resources Management and program manager of the Center. "It reflects that we've expanded our mission to provide more services to our employees, both at headquarters and field locations."
"...our 'new' Center is focusing on the issue of managing one's career."
--Marge Brining
She noted that the previously-named Career Transition Resource Center focused--as the name implied--on career transition issues. "We had wanted to assist all employees in making informed decisions about career transitions, such as exploring job options both in and out of government, planning for retirement or self-employment, or pursuing other opportunities," she said.
The previously-named Center opened in April 1994. The June-July 1994 issue of the USDA News carried a story about that Center.
"But our 'new' Center," she explained, "is focusing on the issue of managing one's career." Granted, it continues to provide guidance, information, and other services related to career transition and out-placement, and offers such tools as computers, appropriate software packages, a resource library, and touch screens to accomplish that.
"Now, however," Brining emphasized, "its broader and more expanded mission includes providing services that focus on employee development."
That means helping an employee develop his/her career through such tools as career counseling, administering and interpreting a personality assessment, and specialty workshops on topics like "Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs)" and "Behavioral Interviews for a Job."
Matt Raphael, OHRM's program manager for labor relations, pointed out that USDA's Labor Management Partnership Council--comprised of USDA managers and officials of labor unions which represent USDA employees--was a major moving force in helping the Center expand into its new mission. "In November 1996, a group of Council representatives visited other federal model centers to compare their services with those of our Center," he related.
"We also conferred with contractors in the private sector to ascertain what approaches--designed to service employees and their careers--have been successful in corporate America."
Third, they obtained feedback from (1) USDA employees who had used the Center's services in the past, (2) employee organizations, and (3) union representatives. "We wanted to tap into various perspectives about whether to continue and/or broaden services at the Center," noted Steve Beasley, an international agribusiness specialist with the Foreign Agricultural Service and [then] the point of contact on the Council for all employee unions, on this particular issue.
Brining explained that USDA's Center in Kansas City, Mo., which opened in June 1994, has remained a Career Transition Resource Center. "The staffers there feel that the 'transition' mission is still the best way to service its employees," she said. "So we are providing 'career management' services to any and all field employees through our Center in Washington, DC."
"We all know that there have been shifting dynamics in our USDA workplace, through such factors as reorganization and downsizing," affirmed Elizabeth Piper, the day-to-day manager of the Washington, DC Center. "So we've made sure that the services at our new Center have adjusted to--and are accommodating--those shifting dynamics."
"But I want to emphasize this point," she added. "We are providing the tools for career management--but it's ultimately the responsibility of each employee to manage his or her own individual career." ¤
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