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We Can't Afford to Lose You! Four Tips for Effective Succession Planning
"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great."
Zig Ziglar
Mark has been a manager in his company's shipping department for twenty five years. He will soon be approaching retirement age and has actually saved enough money to retire comfortably. While he knows it will be difficult leaving his job with all of his great co-workers, he is ready to take on the joys of fishing, golfing and travel. As he mentioned to his boss his wish to retire in the next three months, Mark noticed the color drain from his boss's face. His boss pleaded with him to stay longer as he did not have any idea who could replace someone with his level of experience.
If you manage someone like Mark, you know how incredibly valuable they are to your department and your organization's success. While it does not come as a surprise to you that they want to retire, you have put off the thought of replacing them because you do not have anyone in line to take their place.
Just like any type of planning, succession planning is often put off to a later date. If you are a business owner wanting to retire, I suggest meeting with family and friends to find out who may want to take over the business when you leave. Or, you may discover that you would rather sell to a third party than keep the business going. I suggest having a great financial planner, CPA and attorney to help you price the business and move through this process successfully.
If you are a manager, CEO or serve on a Board of Directors, I suggest using my following tips to help you prepare for the exit of your most valuable players.
- Create performance profiles. While this is a daunting task for any size organization, if you start putting these job descriptions in place with measurable outcomes, your succession planning process will be more efficient and effective. If you do not have these profiles in place, have the departing employee(s) write their top three to five tasks that create eighty percent of their success. Also, this is a great time to add to the profiles by asking your leadership team or Board of Directors for additional skills this position may need now and in the future based on competition and the state of the economy.
- Look for internal candidates first. By matching the departing employee's performance profile or key skill sets with internal employees, you will keep great talent, shorten the planning process and have a replacement that best understands the culture of the organization or "how things work". If no one matches from inside the company, look outside for someone in a similar industry that best matches the profile or key skill sets.
- Observe commitment and competency in key areas. Make sure that the departing employee and other leaders in the organization observe and give continual feedback on how the replacement is doing by observing their willingness to continue learning the new role and their competency in those critical areas.
- Keep it simple. Succession planning can become complex if you create too many charts and metrics to measure success. Identify the top 3-5 activities that the new person must master and make sure they are receiving great training and feedback in those areas.
In order for you organization to continue running effectively, you will need a process now that will share the knowledge and skills of your seasoned employees with those that will be replacing them in the not-so-distant future. |
