7
Using Succession Planning Development Practices
Introduction
There are a multitude of tools and technologies that can help you in your succession planning efforts at this stage. You can use web-based monitoring of training, databases for cataloging your candidates, online assessments, or a variety of other programs. This chapter gives you basic ideas, and specific software tools will be discussed in chapter 8.
Noted
“In a very practical sense, developing and retaining leadership talent is both a strategic and economic necessity. By filling positions internally, you can reduce the time needed to reach proficiency, limit hiring costs, and eliminate turnover resulting from a poor fit with your organizational culture.”
—Jo Moore, Organizational Development Consultant
Creating Individual Development Plans
Individual development plans are excellent tools to develop and motivate staff. These encourage a focused and individualized approach to determining each employee’s needs, helping the employee enhance job skills and guiding them in the development needed to grow into expanded roles in the organization. Managers who promote and use IDPs effectively send the message that they view each person’s professional development as a priority.
Ideally, IDPs focus on using an employee’s strengths and abilities to their best advantage and provide opportunities for the employee to develop new skills. Normally, IDPs do not focus on weaknesses unless the employee has a specific deficiency that could keep them from success.
The plan shown here is just one of the many formats used for IDPs (Table 7-1). You’ll want to guard against making the form too complex or it may discourage employees from using it.
In most organizations, the method is to have employees fill out the form first and then, in the meeting with their supervisors, complete the development opportunities, commitments, and deadlines.
Basic Rule 8
IDPs should be developed for every employee in an organization if succession planning is to be truly fair and equitable.
The format is not as important as the accompanying development discussions. These discussions are excellent opportunities for coaching and learning more about an employee’s goals. At the end of IDP discussions, both the employee and manager should sign the form and the manager should ensure that the employee is given the opportunities for the agreed-upon development.
Table 7-1. Sample Individual Development Plan
• Goals for Successful Performance in Current Position: The IDP is not just a tool to move employees closer to their career goals. It should also be used to develop skills in their current positions. This space is for goals that will help in current job responsibilities.
• Short-Term Career Goals: This is a statement of what the employee hopes to achieve within the next three years. Examples: get a promotion; manage a project.
• Long-Term Career Goals: This is a statement of what the employee hopes to achieve after three years or more. Examples: become a department manager; achieve a certification in a professional program.
• Developmental Objectives: These are statements defining what the employee needs to do to achieve their short-term and long-term goals. Examples: learn about time management; increase proficiency level of public speaking skills.
• Developmental Assignments: This is a list of the strategies the employee will use to achieve the developmental objective. Examples: attend time management training; join Toastmasters.
• Proposed Dates: This is a list of proposed dates when the employee will work on the specific developmental assignments and an intended deadline for completion.
• Estimated Costs: This is a list of the approximate costs of each of the activities. Examples: tuition fees; organization dues.
• Date Completed: This is a list of the actual dates the developmental assignment was completed.
• Notes: Any additional comments that are appropriate to the IDP go here.
• Signature/Date: The IDP should be signed and dated by both the employee and their manager.
Preparation for the IDP Discussion
The IDP discussion is one of the most important conversations that can take place between a manager and employee. It’s an opportunity to discover the employee’s interests, additional abilities, and challenges.
This process should not be rushed, and it requires preparation if it is to be done correctly. The manager should communicate with the employee in advance to confirm when and where the meeting will be held and to inform the employee of their groundwork to get the most out of this meeting.
Employee Groundwork
Complete the IDP background information.
Consider areas of interest and career goals.
Manager Groundwork
Review position description.
Review employee resume and documentation.
Review past IDP discussions and coaching sessions.
IDP Meeting
Review position description together.
Review department and organizational chart.
Review past developmental meetings and goals.
Discuss goals, expectations, interests.
Review developmental and training offerings.
List and date agreed-upon developmental activities.
Document comments.
Sign and agree upon follow-up meetings.
Providing Development Opportunities
Classroom training is an excellent way to get information across to groups of people in your organization. The good news is that it’s not the only way to develop your employees for leadership roles. Experience-based learning and other forms of knowledge transfer will be equally important in your succession planning program. Some of the best practices for sharing knowledge with leadership candidates in your organization are described here.
Basic Rule 9
Developmental opportunities should be presented in as many formats as possible, including classroom, on-the-job training, coaching sessions, and technology-based learning.
Acceleration Pool
Also known as talent pool, this practice identifies potential leadership and management candidates and provides the entire pool with advanced training, coaching, and mentoring as they progress in their employment within the organization.
Acting Assignment
Assigning a candidate to temporarily assume another employee’s responsibilities while that person is absent can be a good opportunity for the candidate to get experience at an advanced level.
Apprenticeship, Internship, and Traineeship
These are formal arrangements where an experienced person passes along knowledge and skill to a novice who, after a designated period of time, achieves full status in that occupation.
Best Practices Sessions
These sessions allow personnel to share ideas that have worked well for them, to ask for advice in problem areas, and to build upon procedures that have worked for others.
Buddy System
This can take many forms, including pairing key employees with other staff for special projects, internship programs, and mentoring programs.
Chief Knowledge Officer
An organization may choose to appoint an individual or several representatives to oversee the development of a system of knowledge management for the company.
Coaching Sessions
These include formal and informal opportunities for a supervisor who is experienced in a process to instruct employees in higher levels of performance and management.
Community of Practice
This is a group of individuals who share knowledge about common work practices or interests even though they are not part of the same team or department; they can also be known as communities of interest and SIGs (special interest groups).
Cross-Training
Employees learn parts of another job, typically through the buddy system.
Debriefing
This is a meeting conducted immediately after an event or project to discuss what went right or wrong while it is still fresh in the minds of all involved. The results should be shared among anyone in the organization who would benefit from the information. Hewlett-Packard calls these “Project Snapshots.” The U.S. Army calls them “After Action Reviews.”
E-Learning
Computer-based or web-based training on selected topics helps develop an employee’s professional or technical skills.
Exit Interview
This is an interview or questionnaire that employees complete upon leaving the company.
FAQs
Creating a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) and the authoritative answers to those questions is a valuable method of ensuring consistency, orienting new employees, and capturing company knowledge.
Job Aids
Job aids are tools to help employees perform tasks accurately. These can include checklists, work flow charts, diagrams, reference tables, posters, checklists, decision tree diagrams, videos, and reference binders.
Intranet and Internet
The online collection of forms, processes, policies, contact information, and FAQs can serve as a valuable and easily accessible tool for employees.
Job Rotation
Giving employees opportunities to work in different areas of the organization and acquire experience in different disciplines or functions helps them to understand various departments as well as the effect of their actions on the rest of the organization.
Key Assignment
This may include position rotation, task force membership, leading a project, or taking on a role of higher level of responsibility. Research has shown that key assignments are a primary source for developing future leaders.
Knowledge Audit
This is a formal process that helps an organization identify what knowledge it has, what knowledge is missing, who needs the information, and how it will be used.
Knowledge Fair
This is an event to showcase information about an organization or a topic. It can be used internally to provide a forum for sharing information or externally to educate customers about important information.
Knowledge Map
This is a directory that catalogs what information is available in an organization and where it is located. An example is a resource directory that lists people with expert knowledge on specific subjects.
Leadership Institute
Many organizations around the country have begun to hold training institutes to develop the skills of potential leaders. A leadership institute offers not only an opportunity to learn in formal classes but also the ability to network with other emerging leaders in the organization.
Mentoring
Mentoring pairs a skilled person with a less experienced person with the goal of developing or strengthening competencies of the less experienced person. It’s best if the mentor is not a supervisor, so that mentoring discussions take place on a different level than daily activities and office procedures. Mentoring can be practiced formally with structured and documented sessions or they can be informal, brief moments of discussion.
On-the-Job Training
Most organizations use some form of on-the-job training (OJT), where an experienced employee teaches a new person how to perform job tasks. Although it may be unstructured and informal, this type of training is most effective when it includes a schedule of training, recordkeeping, and feedback.
Online Courses
Online training on specific topics by outside sources can be studied by your training division to determine appropriate ones as potential training resources for your organization.
Outside Training
Employees can be sent to seminars, conferences, or formal training classes presented by a college, instructor, or other organization.
Process Documentation
This electronic or written documentation can include the reason for the process, steps, key dates, workflow chart, key contacts, and the file names and locations of related documents. These documents become valuable training tools and checklists for learning processes included in the job responsibilities.
Recordings
Valuable information can be captured and shared by recording audio or video of important meetings, events, presentations, or procedures.
Self-Study
The company may offer workbooks, references, or other self-directed training for the employee to complete at their own pace.
Skills Inventory
This is a listing of the knowledge and skills people bring from previous employment or outside activities. This information can be gathered through questionnaires or interviews.
SME Training
Employees who are subject matter experts often make excellent instructors on their specialties. This training can be offered in classroom settings, as training segments in departmental meetings, or even electronically captured for future reference.
Stretch Assignment
This is a temporary appointment that allows an employee to use different or new skills to stretch beyond their current abilities. Examples include chairing a committee or meeting, leading a special project, or being assigned a challenging new task.
Temp Assignment
An employee is temporarily assigned to another position for the specific purpose of learning the roles and responsibilities of that job.
Training
This encompasses a large variety of activities used to transfer knowledge. Methods may include classroom instruction, simulations and scenarios, computer-based instruction, exercises, and web-based training.
Transition Leave
This arrangement allows an employee who is close to retirement to reduce their workweek by an agreed-upon percentage without affecting their benefits and pension. This can be used as a retention strategy, allowing more time for knowledge transfer.
Web-Based Tools
Companies with multiple locations may find it beneficial to use tools such as online meetings, phone conferences, satellite interviews, or webinars.
Work Diaries
These are simply a database containing key knowledge, including contacts, networks, resources, learning, best practices, and answers to FAQs. A template may be used to help keep the information in a standard format.
Summary
The focus of this chapter on IDPs and knowledge transfer methods is valuable even if your organization doesn’t have the resources to undergo full succession planning. Many managers never take the time to hold development discussions with their staff, and yet this investment in time can help retention and morale as well as help uncover hidden talents and skills that could be used to help the organization and make employees more engaged in their positions.
Additionally, organizations are often locked into the concept of classroom training. So, an organization that can’t support classroom training and talent development might think that it doesn’t have any development opportunities to offer employees. If you learn to recognize the many forms that training can take, you’ll be able to use these as developmental opportunities, and learning will occur even without a classroom.
Think About This
Developmental opportunities do not have to be formal to be effective. Using everyday coaching opportunities, career discussions, and problem-solving collaborations can be as beneficial to developing an employee’s leadership skills as a structured class.
Getting It Done
You’ll want to make the IDP format (Table 7-2) available to all managers in the organization so they can use this in career planning sessions with their employees.
Your organization will want to present IDP workshops to teach managers how to hold effective development sessions. Follow up to ensure that IDP sessions have been scheduled for all employees.
Finally, list all the developmental opportunities available in your organization and create new ones from the ideas in this chapter. Publicize these opportunities using your existing communications vehicles. Use those same vehicles to remind managers that they need to follow up on IDP deadlines to ensure that employee development is on track.
An important reminder for this phase of succession planning is that by monitoring how well employees follow up on their developmental activities, you can get a good indicator of their performance and interest in future positions.
Table 7-2. Sample IDP Format
