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Stuart Ryan

At the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, employees not only need core knowledge of the finance and banking industry as well as compliance requirements and procedures; they must have expertise in general leadership skills, such as communication, and emerging and technical areas, such as data analysis. Employees likewise must stay up to date on the technology and tools they use every day.According to Jeremy Manjorin, the organization’s chief learning officer, that broad spectrum of skills demands a “holistic approach to employee development that takes into consideration not just the technical [skills] but the values and behaviors we want at the New York Fed.”Given that experience levels among workers can range from people with doctorates to those in their first year of work, Manjorin notes, that variance can complicate the development and rollout of learning initiatives.“We really have to make sure that we are focused on the learning needs of the total employee population, whether they’ve been here for one year or 30 years, and in whatever group they work in. It’s a challenge,” he admits.Mission-driven learningThe Federal Reserve, commonly called the Fed, is an independent governmental entity created by Congress in 1913 to serve as the central bank of the US. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one of 12 regional banks that work within that system to foster economic and financial stability and vitality throughout the country.“We’re a mission-driven organization. Our goal is to make the US economy strong and create a stable financial system for all segments of society,” says Manjorin.Although the New York Fed serves a geographically small area compared with the other Federal Reserve banks, it is the largest in terms of assets and volume of activity. Chief among the functions for its approximately 3,000 employees is the implementation of monetary policy, one of the Fed’s three central missions. The other two missions are international operations and supervision and regulation.Carrying out those missions requires its workforce to have a wide array of skills and competencies.Mapping skillsLike in many organizations, while the various roles at the New York Fed seem significantly different on the surface, they typically have common skills. To get a better handle on the shared and distinctive skills of each job, the New York Fed embarked on an organization-wide skills-mapping journey.“We have taken on a skills-based approach to talent development at the bank. This means you have a holistic understanding of your workforce—really understanding the roles, then mapping those roles to specific skills,” Manjorin explains.The New York Fed started the initiative by conducting an analysis of all roles throughout the entire workforce, isolating the skills, knowledge, and competencies required for each. The first pass at mapping skills was automated, using market data and job descriptions and then marrying that information to the New York Fed’s internal profiles to create extensive skills taxonomies.“There’s technology that helps facilitate skills analysis, but it also requires a lot of input from subject matter experts,” Manjorin states. “This was a bankwide effort. It’s not just an HR effort. It’s not just the talent development department or the organizational effectiveness department. We needed subject matter expertise at all levels.”After the initial intake, the teams worked with subject matter experts to validate the information gathered and align similar skills and competencies to each role as well as help define requirements for demonstrating proficiency. For example, when defining competencies around project management, specific skills may be the same, but the proficiency level for an entry-level project manager will of course be different from that of an experienced project manager.“SMEs would go in and review all the roles within their function, evaluate the skills we identified, and calibrate the assigned proficiency levels,” Manjorin shares.The teams worked with SMEs to conduct several levels of validation. The result is a complete skill ontology and architecture with mechanisms in place to update the architecture as additional roles and skills emerge.“The skills ontology is not set stone,” Manjorin explains. “As new roles develop, it grows and evolves too.”Linking skills to development“The driving force behind skills mapping was so that our people could get a better understanding of their skills and career development planning, and the organization could get better at enabling the development of our talent,” he adds.
Manjorin notes that a skills-based approach helped his team cultivate a heightened awareness of the organization’s learning needs and opportunities, in addition to its existing training and development resources. By having individual skills and competencies identified for each role, the team was able to connect them to workshops, online learning programs, training programs provided through content partners such as LinkedIn Learning, and microlearning assets.In addition, the talent development team used the gathered information to create a variety of learning paths that guide employees to deeper skill proficiency. Fortunately, many assets and programs work for multiple roles. More importantly, the learning function was able to spot gaps among its learning deliverables and determine where it needed to build, refresh, or buy new learning solutions.“Skills mapping helped us gain insight into the most coveted or sought-after skills as well as where the organization had opportunities to provide the right learning,” Manjorin states. “For the learning function, it’s a way to see those opportunities at a glance. It was transformative from a strategy and planning perspective.”During the past 18 months, the talent development team has built a robust catalog of offerings and paths that enable employees to self-serve development. “What we really want to do is change the model from ‘We’re going to push learning to people’ to where managers and employees say, ‘This is what I want to develop’ and simply access it,” explains Manjorin.“And if individual employees or managers do not see what they need, we encourage them to let us know. They can tell us what type of skills they want and why they need to develop them. That type of feedback is baked into the infrastructure of the catalog.”What’s more, when employees are looking to develop a skill or competency, the catalog enables them to search assets such as formal workshops and e-learning programs that are part of a learning path. But there’s another learning component outside of the formal aspect of a learning catalog.The organization has released a marketplace of on-the-job learning experiences that fall outside of a classroom-based approach. In fact, the New York Fed has formalized such experiential development opportunities into what it calls gigs.“These gigs are longer-term opportunities where employees go to a different department, function, or group to work for a specified number of hours a week over the course of a few months,” Manjorin states. “They focus on performing tasks that offer identifiable skill development and experiential learning opportunities.”While those short-term, project-based assignments always existed, he asserts that there is now a “more intentional effort toward tying gigs to specific skills and a focus on an employee’s skill development.”Any department can launch a gig. For example, let’s say a team has a major project on the horizon. The manager can create a gig that the entire workforce can view. The gig profile must pinpoint specific skill development opportunities the employee will gain from the experience, making it a far more valuable endeavor.“We changed it from simple ‘Department X needs a pair of hands’ to ‘this is a development opportunity,’” Manjorin explains. “That narrative shift and the ability to see how the work benefits the employee’s development right in the gig’s description invigorates our people around talent development.”Opportunities to develop select skills needs to be distributed broadly throughout the organization. Just as anyone can launch a gig, any employee can apply for one. Manjorin describes how having workers participate in gigs in other departments creates a competency boost for their original team as well.“Maybe a team needs a certain skill or more likely a higher proficiency level of that skill. Or perhaps an employee is really interested in learning a skill or raising their proficiency so they can move their career to the next level. Training will only get them so far without experiential learning and on-the-job experience.”He adds: “Gigs are not only about filling a resource need. It’s actually about ‘How can we build skills organization-wide and nurture networks? How can we cross-pollinate the workforce?’ Learning from people who have the skills is really what gets people to advance in their careers.”What’s next?“Our people are seeking a stronger understanding of their own career potential and development. They’re looking for career mobility,” says Manjorin. “They want awareness and insight of not only their current role and skills but skills for future roles. They want a better understanding of career planning.”
He imparts that people leaders at the New York Fed are also starting to look for more development and mobility opportunities for their people.“Aligning skills through roles helps bolster the idea of mobility because we can look at different skills and see how some skills are usable across different roles. That opens up more opportunities within the bank,” Manjorin explains.“This holistic approach to skills and development makes it easier for our employees at the New York Fed to identify their own career path and start planning their own development journey.”The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System.

Banking on Holistic Development

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Design for All Learners

When making the leap from individual contributor to people manager, you quickly learn that your existing skill set doesn’t automatically translate to success in your new role. And it’s the same when you’re learning to manage a hybrid or remote team. This new(ish) way of working brings its own set of challenges. Hybrid work doesn’t appear to be going anywhere—83 percent of workers say they prefer a hybrid model versus working in an office full-time. This means that it’s essential to be aware of the common pitfalls of managing hybrid teams and be intentional about avoiding them. Here are some tips from Udemy instructors on managing remote teams.Common Challenge #1: Proximity Bias Proximity bias is the (often unconscious) preference we give to people who work onsite simply because we see them more often and work more closely with them. Think this isn’t a problem? Gartner finds that 64 percent of managers say onsite employees are higher performers than remote employees, and 75 percent say onsite employees are more likely to be promoted. It’s easy to see how these beliefs could create a self-fulfilling prophecy, where managers think remote employees aren’t as worthy of promotions, so they don’t advocate for them as equally or provide the same opportunities as those given to people working onsite.How to overcome it? Consider how you’ll attempt to limit this form of bias both in everyday activities and during critical points of the employee lifecycle, like performance reviews and promotions. Udemy instructor Hassan Osman suggests making meetings more equitable by asking all participants to call in from their laptops (even if they’re working out of the same office) and using tools like chat and polls to keep it interactive. For more tips from Hassan on leading a hybrid team, see his course, Better Virtual Meetings.Regarding your team members’ performance, Alexis Haselberger recommends several tactics such as intentionally advocating for your remote workers, highlighting their work in public forums, and regularly auditing who’s being promoted or rewarded, so it doesn’t skew toward in-person employees. For more tips from Alexis, see her course, Essential Skills to Lead From Anywhere. Common Challenge #2: MicromanagementMost people don’t set out to be micromanagers—they simply care about meeting deadlines and quotas and delivering high-quality projects. But somewhere along the line, they stop trusting their team members and start feeling compelled to follow up with them excessively or check their work far too often. While micromanagement is a threat in any work environment, it’s much more likely to occur when we have less visibility into what our team members are doing every day.How to overcome it?Alexis Haselberger recommends establishing explicit working and communication norms. For example, does your team observe core working hours? When and how should team members share updates? What is an acceptable response time to an email or instant message? Any time you assign someone a task or project, discuss the expected timeline and check-in points at the outset. This way, they can be responsible for sending you updates, and you don’t need to interrupt their work by asking for ad hoc progress reports. Udemy instructor Axel Rittershaus recommends relying on digital documentation so all team members can see that everyone is working on their tasks and making progress. Using project management tools like Trello or Asana makes it easy for anyone to get a high-level overview of a project’s progress. You can also reduce the need for progress update meetings when everyone has access to this information through shared tools. For more tips from Axel, check out his course, Leading & Working in Hybrid Teams/Remote Teams. Common Challenge #3: Burnout Burnout is a very real concern in the workplace. McKinsey finds that 49 percent of employees are experiencing burnout, but the real number may be much higher since those who have experienced the worst burnout have likely already left their roles.Burnout is even more of a concern in a hybrid or remote setting because we often need clear boundaries. When does our workday start and end? Should you respond to “one last” email or message? It can be difficult to balance our desire to appear productive and helpful with our need to care for our families or ourselves.How to overcome it?As a leader, look for ways to model good boundary behaviors. Alexis recommends taking vacation days (and not working during them!) and avoiding sending work emails or messages outside of regular work hours. If you can only find time to look at emails late at night or on weekends, make sure you use the “schedule send” feature so it arrives in your team members’ inboxes at a reasonable time, and you don’t create the expectation that they should respond outside of the usual workday.Axel says leaders have a responsibility to pay attention to their team members’ behavior. If you notice any changes—like a lack of enthusiasm, excitement, or participation—make sure you check in and encourage them to take some time off to rest and recharge.Common Challenge #4: Social and Professional IsolationWe gather a lot of information and build a sense of belonging when we share the same workspace as our team members—even if we’re not doing it intentionally. We might overhear a bit of a conversation and join in or run into someone while grabbing a snack and sharing a quick update. These types of serendipitous encounters are much harder to replicate in the hybrid setting, making it easy for people to feel left out in terms of social interactions and the information needed to do their jobs well. Gartner research finds that only 33 percent of organizations practice true information transparency, so we can’t just assume our team members automatically have access to information.How to overcome it? It’s become a bit of a cliché to host a Zoom happy hour, and many workers are over this trend, says Alexis. Luckily, you can do plenty of other team-building activities with your distributed team, including playing virtual board games, taking virtual classes together, or attending a virtual food or beverage tasting with an expert guide. Axel says there are four main categories for team building: Space and time for informal conversationsPlaces to chatVirtual team-building eventsIn-person team-building events Aim for a balance between each of these types of activities to best support your team. You might also offer optional ways for people to connect casually, such as through a watercooler channel in Slack, chat roulette where people get paired with a random coworker and have a virtual coffee break, or even a silent working hour where people can call into a Zoom meeting and work together quietly.When it comes to information sharing, it’s important to have clear documentation and processes, so people know exactly where and how to search for the answers to their questions. Many managers create “working with me” guides to share with their direct reports and encourage every team member to make their own version.Prepare Managers for the Challenges of Leading Remote and Hybrid TeamsThe companies that best adapt to remote and hybrid work are the ones that will maintain a competitive advantage in the future. When asked what they’re looking for in the future of work, most employees are hoping for better work-life balance and flexibility for day-to-day work. When done well, hybrid work has the potential to deliver both of those outcomes.Managers don’t just automatically have the skills that make them good leaders in today’s challenging work environment. Help your managers prepare to face the challenges of leading remote and hybrid teams through cohort learning from peers and other leaders. 