Take Me With You for a New Era
Steph Percival
Writer | Grassroots Leader | Human-Centred Approaches Practitioner | Healthy Workplaces Advocate
As I prepare to talk about Take Me With You at the Federal Youth Network’s Career Boot Camp, I feel like I’m slipping into an old favourite hoodie. It’s comfortable, it’s useful, and no matter how long it’s been around, it’s still a winner.?
Talking about Take Me With You at Career Boot Camp 2023 feels fitting. After all, it was at Career Boot Camp 2016 that I first heard about the initiative, originally launched at Natural Resources Canada. At the time I was working at Health Canada and I even jotted a note to my friend/colleague/co-conspirator, Julie Crabtree: “How do we bring Take Me With You to Health Canada?”?
?I immediately started working on a pitch for my Assistant Deputy Minister and in June 2016 we launched Take Me With You at Health Canada during National Public Service Week. I had invited Amanda Bloom, who was working on the initiative at Natural Resources Canada, to attend our launch and from there we decided to take it across the public service.?
?So what is Take Me With You??
The goal of Take Me With You is to empower employees to attend meetings and other activities related to their professional interests. This could include things like management meetings where the projects they’re working on are discussed; sessions related to their subject matter expertise; or purely for career development reasons. Amanda, Julie, and I believe in Take Me With You’s power to facilitate knowledge transfer, flatten the hierarchy, and give people more of a stake in the work they do.
What Take Me With You looks like in practice
Managers/Executives: Are your employees in the room when their work is being discussed? Is delegating down and relaying feedback eating up part of your day that could be better spent on essential work? Do you want to intentionally develop your employees so they feel empowered and valued? Offer your employees the chance to attend meetings that will help them be more engaged and productive.?
Employees: Do you want to learn more about how decisions are made, better understand feedback on your work, or gain exposure to what’s happening in your department or the wider public service? Ask to attend meetings of interest to your work and/or your career development goals.?
?It may sound wild to encourage more meetings in a world where we’re all tired of seeing our own faces on screen and some private sector organizations have gone full-on anti-meeting. But Take Me With You isn’t about encouraging people to attend more meetings. It’s about encouraging them to attend the right meetings.?
?New frontiers for Take Me With You??
As I revisit the goal of Take Me With You, I see two key areas where departments who have launched the initiative should expand the scope of how they use it.?
?In 2021, the Clerk of the Privy Council issued a?Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion in the Federal Public Service. The call states that “we must encourage and support the voices that have long been marginalized in our organizations. We must create opportunities where they have long been absent.” One specific action it goes on to encourage is bringing grassroots networks and communities within the public service into discussions at senior executive tables.??
Take Me With You can be a tool for increasing inclusion of new and important voices at our decision making tables. If your meetings, teams, senior leadership cadre, etcetera, is fairly homogeneous–as many still are–promote and use Take Me With You to ensure you are hearing from diverse perspectives. But I caution: it is no longer enough to simply have observers in these conversations. If you are going to give people a seat at the table, give them a voice too.?
The other area which can benefit from leveraging Take Me With You is inclusion in our hybrid work environment. With the recent return to office mandate–of which I have many criticisms I won’t articulate here–as the former Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick recently?pointed out, we need to “move forward and figure out how middle and senior managers can best play their essential role in performance management and talent management in the new workplaces that are going to be increasingly hybrid”.?
Adopting Take Me With You is one way to ensure we do not lose sight of the people we have from coast to coast to coast, some of whom will not be in offices or who will be in different offices from their colleagues, or who will be in office on different days. Take Me With You is one practice you can use to think about who’s not in the conversation or who’s not at the forefront of your mind and ensure they are included.?
领英推荐
?If you’re having an impromptu hallway conversation and it impacts someone who’s not there, or you realize others should be part of the conversation, pause and take it online/on the phone. If you find yourself inadvertently favouring employees in the office, stop, explore your bias, and think about how Take Me With You can increase your exposure to people you’re not hearing from as regularly.?
?New Leadership Callout?
?I still have the notes from that first Career Boot Camp in 2016. I still share and adhere to much of the advice I heard there. And I still advocate for Take Me With You. But in recent years as our careers and lives have shifted, Amanda, Julie, and I haven’t had the bandwidth needed to continue to drive the initiative forward. So, like that favourite hoodie that may have been sitting in the closet too long, it’s time to dust off Take Me With You and re-envision it for a new era.?
?We are seeking new leaders with diverse backgrounds who can infuse fresh energy into the initiative and create guidance and support that will evolve Take Me With You into a tool to better support representation and inclusion, including in a hybrid work environment.?
?Leading Take Me With You is a volunteer role, best achieved with management support that will let you embed the work with your day job. Leading grassroots initiatives like Take Me With You and the FlexGC Network have been some of the most rewarding roles in my career, allowing me to gain experience in areas I otherwise may not have, get a broad perspective of the public service as a whole, and achieve a sense of fulfillment via empowering others.?
If you’re interested in truly committing to this kind of leadership role, reach out to me, Julie Crabtree, and Amanda Bloom. We’ll meet with interested folks to build a new leadership team, providing you with support and mentorship to help you succeed.
?A Take Me With You call to action for leaders
?Look around you.?
?What perspectives can your work and decisions benefit from??
?Who’s not being heard in your organization??
?Are your employees in the room when their work is being discussed??
?Would you benefit from cutting back on the feedback relay race??
?What development opportunities could you be providing??
Take Me With You
Clinical Assessment Officer at Health Canada - Santé Canada | Co-Founder & Executive Director of STEM sin Fronteras Foundation | Passionate About Creating Social Impact
2 年I took advantage of the Take Me With You initiative last year, and I loved it. My bureau/division was very supportive and I think it's an excellent opportunity to learn and set our career development goals.
From Awareness to Alignment to Achievement: Helping Leaders Unlock Their and Their Team's Potential | Insights Discovery | 360° Assessments | Professional Speaker | Emcee | Leadership Coaching
2 年A great article Steph Percival and good luck with your presentation tomorrow. I am sure your audience at the career boot camp will enjoy and appreciate the call to action for them to ask to participate in the right meetings. I think all of us can use a reminder to start or increase the use of these practices for increased engagement as well as career development, talent management and inclusion.