New projects

Lead or join a new project to expand your technical expertise, and for more junior staff, to learn to practice using authority to make decisions. Projects could include: participate in the development of a new process or policy; participate in the start-up of a new team; re-design a flawed system; improve metrics to assess effectiveness; manage a large scale project; manage a continuous quality improvement process; solve a real business problem; undertake a strategic research project that is of importance to your organisation; or volunteer your work group as a test site for a new organisational system or process.

Tip Talk to people around you to help you identify opportunities, especially more senior staff who may have a broader view of opportunities outside your immediate working environment.

Working groups, committees and taskforces

Lead or join a committee, working group, or taskforce to solve an organisational problem, or progress a particular policy (e.g. diversity working group, work health and safety working group). This can not only help to develop new knowledge, but also provide exposure to developing strategies to facilitate change, improve understanding of strategic priorities, and cultivate productive working relationships across the organisation.

Tip: Letting your manager know of your interest is a useful first step (not only can they look out for opportunities with you, but they may need to factor that time into your work schedule). In addition, requests for representatives are usually called for from time to time and you could also contact People and Culture to alert them to your interest.

Representational roles

Represent your team or organisation internally or externally at events such as inter-departmental forums, conferences, cross-functional meetings, and senior management meetings. These can be a highly effective way to establish relationships and alliances, understand and negotiate across boundaries, and learn how to communicate with influence.

Reading and research

Undertake a program of reading and research to develop specific expertise in an important area of work or knowledge. You may wish to present and share insights with peers and draw upon your learnings to propose recommendations or improvements.

Take on new responsibilities

Expand your role by taking on new responsibilities that may not necessarily fit strictly within your job description. This provides the opportunity to use your strengths, develop new skills, and build your breadth of experience. You may expand your responsibilities by: taking on a task usually performed by your manager; trading a responsibility with a colleague; focusing more attention and effort on a part of your job you’ve been avoiding; developing new strategies to accomplish some aspect of your work; volunteering for a task in your group that would normally go to a more experienced person; covering for others on leave; taking a role in the annual budgeting process; conducting job interviews; acting in positions with higher or additional duties; and taking part in project reviews.

Tip: “Failure” is often a powerful learning experience that strengthens both the individual and the organisation. Building a supportive environment conducive to experiential learning requires the recognition that, sometimes, failure is almost an inevitable outcome of experimentation (Jennings 2013).

Work placements

Temporarily moving to another work area within or outside your immediate team could enable you to develop skills and knowledge in unfamiliar areas, gain exposure to different ways of working, gain an appreciation of the work priorities in other organisational areas, and help forge relationships across the organisation.

These experiences are often useful for people who have been in their current role for a longer period of time, and who have a gap in their work experience to date (e.g. you may have always worked in policy development and need some service delivery experience).

Tip: This is definitely an option you want to talk to your manager about. Together, you may identify a work area to spend a set amount of time in (its probably useful to move for at least three months), or look for temporary transfer or acting opportunities.

Cross-functional activities

Involving yourself in cross-functional activities can help build and maintain productive cross-functional networks, improve your ability to deal effectively with multiple priorities within the organisation, and improve your ability to facilitate cooperation and partnerships across the organisation.

Cross-functional activities may include: site visits; working with people from other business units/functions/locations, cross-divisional or cross-agency projects; co-managing a project with someone in another function; or managing projects that require coordination across the organisation.

Meetings

Meetings are perhaps one of the most underutilised opportunities in organisations. They present numerous development opportunities. Observing, participating in, or chairing meetings are a useful way to better understand the strategic priorities of your organisation, understand and negotiate across political boundaries, and develop the ability to communicate effectively.

Ways in which you could learn from meetings include: taking on different roles within a meeting (such as chairing a meeting, or substituting for managers in meetings); have your manager provide regular updates on strategic directions and initiatives; or shadow your manager at external meetings and high level internal forums.

Tip: Another way to approach meetings is to use them as an opportunity to “get on the balcony”, to observe different communication styles, the way influence and authority is used during discussions, the way decisions are made, and how other interactions play out. Importantly, use these observations to reflect upon what seems to work (or not)—and what evidence you have that something “worked” (or not), and what you could draw upon in your own work behaviour to become more effective.

Stretch assignments

Undertaking challenging and complex assignments outside your normal work role can be highly valuable in not only broadening your technical expertise, but also building important attributes such as resilience, self-awareness, flexibility and courage.

When selecting a stretch assignment it is important to consider the value or importance of the task to your organisation. Stretch assignments may include: handling a crisis; working with difficult clients; working in a rapidly changing situation; influencing and supporting others to take difficult action; working with multiple people with contradictory and competing views; leading a change management process; volunteering to take over a project that is in trouble; working with difficult stakeholders; managing a performance concern; and representing employees to higher management.

Tip: Learning from “mistakes”. We are all human and we all make mistakes. The key is to focus on why you made the mistake and locating causes, and less on worrying about the effects (Eichenger and Lombardo 2000).

Community activities and volunteering

Undertaking community-based or volunteering activities can provide opportunities to broaden your experience across multiple functional boundaries in a way that may not be possible in your day-to-day role.
Tip: If you are looking to be stretched, select a task which either requires interaction with people who hold different perspectives; requires development of expertise in an unfamiliar area; requires the need to handle more ambiguity than one is used to; or requires you to work within a different function/department/culture (McCauley et al. 2014).

State of Play

Our staff forum where you can hear from the Secretary, Kim Evans, and key people across the agency about our priorities and key projects and activities. More information here

Induction

State Growth’s integrated induction approach supports the introduction of new employees to the agency and the broader State Service. It encompasses three phases that complement each other - with the aim of making the process of settling in smooth and effective for the new employee, manager and the team. More information.

Wellbeing opportunities

myWellbeing is the department’s Wellbeing program, which aims to positively enhance and support the wellbeing of our people. “Wellbeing is an individual’s positive physical, mental and social state of being” (Converge International). Every aspect of your life influences your state of wellbeing. This includes factors such as relationships, an enjoyable and fulfilling career, regular exercise, diet, sleep, beliefs, friendships, hobbies, resilience and a sense of purpose and belonging. As a department, we recognise the benefits of a positive workplace for the individual and organisation as a whole and aim to support the wellbeing of our people. More information.