If your employee retention program is focused on keeping individuals in the same position forever, you’re not planning on them being successful.
One of the highlights of my career was being promoted to a Head of Operational Excellence role. While the offer sounded amazing, it was the beginning of one of the most difficult transitions of my career.
The promotion was exactly what I had wanted, but I was completely unprepared because there was no succession planning. Organizations often promote people to solve an immediate need, but lack planning for when that person is actually successful and achieves what they were promoted to do.
If succession planning isn’t part of your current workplace culture, are you working to retain jobs or the people within them?
Succession Planning demonstrates an organizational investment in talent.
Think about your experience when you arrive at a company and the first one to two days is filled with warm welcomes and a highly coordinated on-boarding process. You get a computer, a space to work, invitations for lunch and you settle into what you believe is a long and rewarding career.
If you’re amongst the lucky few, you continue your experience with monthly meetings to discuss strategic alignment of your work with the purpose of the organization. Finally, you discuss the development skills needed to prepare you for the next level and only in the last part of your meeting, you discuss tactical issues needed to complete your work.
Are these conversations not happening in your workplace?
When Succession Planning is discussed on day 1 with an employee, your brand leads with this in mind; building a culture of grooming leaders.
When you attract talent in the context of succession planning (future focused) vs. filling a technical gap (today focused), the talent you draw to your organization shows up differently and your investments are better protected.
You can start building a culture based on Succession Planning today by taking these steps:
- Ensure every functional area of the organization has a career ladder
- Include the next two roles in every job description so when you are hiring talent you are evaluating them in the context of the current role and the next levels above
- Implement leading indicator metrics that include:
- % employees on track for the next role
- % Job descriptions that have succession planning defined
- % Functions have a career ladder defined
The first day of my position as the Head of Operational Excellence for North America it was up to me to create my own plan. As a result, in my next 5 years:
- I rebuilt the Operational Excellence Organization to generate 5MM in cost savings annually (but I struggled a lot to make this happen)
- I aligned with the Head of Quality and started to shadow their work (to create my own succession plan)
- I was asked to succeed the Head of Quality and had only 2 weeks of transition (so I struggled a little less)
- I turned around North America’s Quality performance in 2.5 years, groomed my staff for the next level and handed over a transition plan for my successor. (my boss did not have to struggle with my replacement)
When Succession Planning becomes an integral part of your culture, there are fewer surprises and people feel better prepared for the next role.
How will you create a Succession Planning Culture that attracts the right talent and more predictably prepares the organization for the future and a lasting impact?
Let’s book a call if you struggle with this and want to intentionally make Succession Planning your Organizational Lead Magnet.