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

Career Patterns Guide

• Introduction
• Dimensions
• Scenarios
• Analytic Tool
  • Define the Job Requirement
  • Categorize Requirements into Career Pattern Scenarios
  • Identify Environment Features
  • Interactive Tutorials
  • Download Analytic Tool
• Building Work Environments
• Resources and Tools
• References

• Download Career Patterns PDF [745 KB]

Watch Interactive Flash Tutorial - Step 3 [1.45 MB]

Purpose: To identify the work environment features needed to appeal to workers in your selected Career Pattern Scenarios.

Directions:

1. Turn to Section I of this guide and review the Career Pattern Scenario(s) you selected in Step 2. Pay particular attention to the sections labeled "Work Attractors."
   
   
2. Identify those work attractors you think are most critical to appeal to the workers you are seeking for each of your job requirements. You may also identify other features of the work environment you think are critical to attract and retain the talent you need. Enter the attractors and other features you identify in the Career Patterns Analysis Worksheet under the column labeled "Work Environment Features."
   
   
3. After you identify relevant features, determine if that feature currently exists in your work environment or whether a policy, process, or practice would need to be changed in order for that feature to be present in your work environment. If the feature currently exists, check the column labeled "Current"; if the feature doesn't currently exist, check the column labeled "Future."
   
   
4. After completing the column labeled "Work Environment Features" on your Career Patterns Analysis Worksheet for all your job requirements, go back and identify those "Future" features of your work environment you believe are critical. You may want to focus on those that seem to appear again and again for multiple requirements; also consider any features you believe are important in order to meet your mission critical requirements.
   
   
5. Circle those "Future" features that you think are the top priorities your agency needs to focus on in making changes to policy, process, or practice. Also circle "Current" features where action is needed to promote or enhance the feature.

Once you have completed step 3, refer to Section III of this Guide for information on how to plan concrete actions to shape your work environment so it offers the features you identified.

STEP 3 TIPS: Review your check marks on the Career Patterns Analysis Questionnaire. Where a characteristic is not checked, but it would appeal to the Career Pattern Scenarios you are targeting, consider what changes you would need to make to your work environment in order to make the characteristic apply in your agency. You may want to capture these changes on your Career Patterns Analysis Worksheet.

Case Study - Step 3: AHCA notes desired work environment features as "Current" or "Future" -