U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Ensuring the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce

Building Work Environments: Introduction

This section uses the results of the Analytic Tool. It provides guidance to help you develop an action plan for building a work environment with the features needed to attract and retain a 21st century workforce. It also helps identify key messages about your work environment that you need to communicate to current and potential workers.

Prepare a Career Patterns Action Plan

Review the features you listed under "Work Environment Features" in your Career Patterns Analysis Worksheet (see Identify Environment Features). This list identifies attractors that appeal to people in the Career Pattern Scenarios you selected for your agency. Identify which features currently exist at your agency and which features appear repeatedly in the list but are not a part of the current work environment.

For those features you circled as agency priorities on the Career Patterns Analysis Worksheet, identify the specific actions that must be taken to make the desired change or to effectively promote positive features to potential applicants and current employees. Also identify specific actions to educate managers and supervisors to be effective and successful in the new work environments. For each action, indicate who is responsible for taking action and when the action should be completed.

The intended end result is a work environment that appeals to the Career Pattern Scenarios you have targeted.

ACTION PLAN TIPS: Don't try to draw a one-for-one connection between every feature you listed under "Work Environment Features" in your Career Patterns Analysis Worksheet and the actions you list in your Career Patterns Action Plan. Many actions could address multiple features identified at Identify Environment Features. Try to identify the actions that will have the biggest impact on the features you identified as important. After developing your action plan, make sure you incorporate critical goals and actions into your agency's strategic workforce plan.