Janet’s youngest child just got her driver’s license. Janet is thinking about what she calls “resuming” her career.
Janet is the cutting edge of the teleworker trend. Working from home allowed her to have children and be the mom she thought she should be. Now her oldest is going to college next year and her youngest can drive herself to school.
She’s free to go into the office on a permanent basis and even travel for work occasionally. She’d like to increase her work challenges as her parenting responsibilities change. But she doesn’t see many options.
“I really don’t want to be responsible for other people’s work so management is out,” she says. “And it doesn’t seem like there’s another way for me to have a career.”
Janet is a competent and committed knowledge worker. She’s mastered her current job and she wants more challenges at work. She’s ready to make a change that will give her an opportunity to grow and develop her skills.
There are a lot of Janets out there and they’re a big talent development challenge. They’re knowledge workers and good at what they do. They don’t want to become a boss. What can we offer them?
Can we offer the opportunity to work with a team?
Can we offer the opportunity for more challenging work?
Can we offer the variety of working on different projects?
You’d better start developing some answers to those questions. If the future belongs to the knowledge workers, it will also belong to the companies who give them an opportunity to grow and develop.
