One of the things that employees are asking for in very specific language is they want to know what’s next. One of the challenges for small to mid-sized agencies is that, often, when you don’t discuss a career path, trajectory, or growth path with your employees, they look at your 10, 12, 15, 20, or 25-person agency and see a lot of longevity.

They also see a lack of upward mobility for themselves. And so, you must have intentional conversations with every employee about their opportunities over the next 2, 3, or 4 years, or else you’re at risk of losing them because they mistakenly believe that the only way to grow is to leave.

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So first of all, it starts with finding out where they think they want to go. Exploring that with them. Making them understand that just because they're a Junior Woodchuck doesn't mean they have to become a Woodchuck. They could become something different if there's something interesting in the agency that’s sort of adjacent to what they do now. We have a lot of account people that shift to project management, or vice versa, because it's not quite the right fit. But it's also important that they understand, all right, you're at this level now. To accomplish – so you're a Junior Woodchuck. To become a Woodchuck, here are the hard and soft skills you need to have to move from Junior Woodchuck to Woodchuck. It's also important inside their current job description for them to understand the soft and hard skills that they have to master to be a master of, or excellent at the top of the tier of that job description, so that they're ready to move up into the next job description.
So your job descriptions should always include, here are the hard and soft skills that this job needs. And also here are the hard and soft skills that you need to develop to move up a level of this category or in this department. If you don't have job descriptions that give that kind of detail and that you can't map out for me how I go from Junior Woodchuck to Woodchuck to Senior Woodchuck to Woodchuck Supervisor, Department Head of the Woodchucks, whatever that is, then I'm going to think the only way for me to grow in my career is to leave. So don't leave this up to chance. Do not leave this up to the employee to figure out. This is a, this is a shared conversation that you should have. And it also then defines and really helps set the goals for their growth plans every quarter. If they know they want – they’re Junior Woodchuck and they want to be a Woodchuck, it's pretty easy to look on the Woodchuck list and see where they have to learn both hard and soft skills. What they need to be practicing so that they can move and advance inside the agency. If you don't have that in your job descriptions, that's a great edit. If you're a member of AMI, you know that the job description library that we have has all of that mapped out for you. So don't be shy about asking for it or going and downloading all of those job descriptions. Okay? But if you're not a member, make sure you build that into your job descriptions so that your employees know they don't have to go anywhere. If they want to keep growing, they can stay right with you.
All right? See you next week.

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