Throughout these resources, you’ve been invited to be inspired by stories of success and to challenge your assumptions about the employment realities, needs, and opportunities of people with disabling conditions within rural workplaces and communities. With a fresh vision for the future, you have a solid foundation for collaborative solutions to bridge the disconnect,, along with tools for goal setting and action planning.
However, as you’ve seen in the employment success factors and the change and transition resource, life isn’t static. Individuals, workplaces, and communities need agile, responsive, and flexible plans for action. To achieve your goals, you’ll need to monitor progress, make shifts, and celebrate your successes along the way.
Consider a time you successfully achieved a goal. This does not need to be related to career or work. Feel free to pick something, big or small, from any aspect of your life.
As you reflect on this “success story,” what characteristics, skills, or attributes were present?
Individuals, workplaces, and communities need to:
A well-crafted action plan will provide a clear picture of how to monitor progress towards your goal. It will identify specific tasks and timelines. These will serve as milestones (i.e., small achievements) which can be tracked, revealing your progress.
Some tips for individuals include:
Some tips for workplaces include:
Some tips for communities include:
Revisit the success story you shared earlier.
How did you monitor progress? If you didn’t, what prevented you from doing so?
Monitoring progress will require collecting information – some data or metrics. Your specific action plan will provide you guidance on what that might be.
For individuals, you may track:
For workplaces, you may track:
For communities, you may track:
The specific information you’ll track, and how, will depend on your action plan (and goal).
Consider your current action plan:
What information might you need to monitor?
Where will you find that information and how can it be measured?
Monitoring your progress helps you to know if you’re on track or not. No matter how planful you’ve been, you may find some adjustments are needed. This is a normal, natural result of living in a complex, dynamic world.
Being adaptable is a key skill for success – in work, life, and learning. Flexibility is needed in implementing your action plan!
How did you demonstrate your adaptability skills?
An evaluation phase is commonly built into many workplace or community projects. It’s an opportunity to gather formal feedback from the various stakeholders involved. Information may be gathered by a member of the team or an independent evaluator. Evaluation may use different approaches to gather information (e.g., assessment tools, surveys, interviews, focus groups); however, typically, evaluation focuses on the following:
For workplaces and communities, evaluation is a way to demonstrate you’ve done what you set out to do, the way you intended. The same can be said for individuals. Evaluation is really just the process of reflection. If you’ve been monitoring your progress and making adjustments along the way, you’ve already engaged in some “evaluation” – formative evaluation. Formative evaluation is ongoing evaluation intended to determine your current progress towards your goal. It can provide essential information to inform adjustments. Summative evaluation, on the other hand, is focused on the outcome – i.e., whether or not you reached the desired goal.
An easy-to-implement “evaluation” strategy for individuals, workplaces, and communities is:
As you can imagine, any “evaluation” will be guided by your specific context.
Revisit the success story from earlier.
Can you see signs of “evaluation”?
In looking ahead, how can you build “evaluation” into your current goal?
Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.
This quote illustrates the importance of small, incremental steps. Be sure to build in space to celebrate small milestones. These milestones are foundational to success for individuals, workplaces, and communities.
Celebrating success can:
If you’re working on your goals collaboratively with a group (e.g., an individual in a success team, a leader within a work department, or as part of a community committee), celebrating success can support:
Success is very personal. The way you choose to celebrate the milestones you’ve reached or the goals you’ve achieved will also be personal.
Revisit the success story from earlier.
How did you celebrate success? If you didn’t, how do you wish you did?
There are endless ways to celebrate success. They may include:
An alternative we’d like you to consider is writing yourself a thank you letter for the things you have successfully achieved. You can prepare this letter in advance, as if the success has already occurred. Then, once you reach your goal, you’ll open the letter to reveal a heartfelt, meaningful message. For example:
“I am grateful for the joy I feel every day at work and the positive relationships I have with my peers. I feel I am contributing through my knowledge, skills, and attitudes. People feel excited to be around me.
To get here, I had to overcome my fear of speaking in public. I had to complete my WHMIS and first-aid training while juggling family demands.”
“I am grateful that our small business now reflects the diversity of our community. Committing to improving accessibility has broadened our customer base and improved workflow of existing staff. It’s also improved the work environment for incoming staff who may have accessibility needs.
We are a now an example of what is possible in our community. As a result, our business has expanded and grown.”
“Creating employment opportunities for youth within our community has benefitted employers and youth.
Employers have found dedicated workers who are more committed to staying within the community. Youth have found a helpful activity to pour their energy into rather than getting themselves into trouble.”
With a current goal in mind, take a moment to write a thank you letter to yourself which can be opened once you achieve your goal.
You can also write thank-you letters to individuals who have contributed to your success.
Although not meeting your goal may be disappointing, resist the urge to punish yourself. We are complex beings in a complex world. There are so many external factors that could be impacting your success. Give yourself some grace and forgiveness. When you’re ready, take a moment to reflect on what skills you’ve developed and lessons you’ve learned.
Learn how the Diversity At Work virtual resource centre came to life and the research that influenced it. Included in this resource are a number of additional support tools (including links to different types of resources, key themes in the field of supported employment, uncovering the unique challenges for rural and remote communities, and our downloadable Research Guide!).
