Succession Planning

Organizations not only need to be staffed to meet the business challenges of today, but also need to prepare for the human capital and leadership challenges of tomorrow. A well developed succession planning process is an important component in successfully meeting these challenges.

Comprehensive succession planning efforts are comprised of the following steps:

• Each “key position” or “critical role” in the organization is profiled in terms of the skills, competencies, abilities, and experience requirements needed to perform in the position
• Current employees in critical roles, as well as high potential employees, are identified and evaluated in terms of their aptitudes, skills, and abilities for the positions outlined above
• Current employees are categorized into “Ready for Promotion Now”, “Ready for Promotion in 1-2 years”, “Ready for Promotion in 3 or More Years”, and “Not Promotable” categories
• Positions that have “bench strength” (i.e., 2 or more candidates ready for promotion now or in 1-2 years”), are identified, as are positions that have no internal candidates – for such cases, a strategy is developed to identify external candidates for such roles
• Development Plans are created for the incumbents who have been profiled in this process, including detail on the additional on-the-job experiences required by each incumbent
• The Succession Plan is used as a guiding document for promoting, transferring, and managing the human capital of the organization
• The Succession Plan is reviewed and updated semi-annually, and additional areas of “gaps” and “bench strength” are identified throughout the organization

Teambuilding Workshops

Getting your employees focused on a set of common goals – and ensuring that employees work together effectively in pursuit of these goals — is perhaps the biggest challenge faced by all organizations.

While the exact format and structure of a teambuilding workshop depends on the issues being addressed and the size of the work group that is participating, common examples of teambuilding activities include the following:

• Clarifying group goals, including the expected outcomes/results from attaining these goals
• Identifying individual roles and responsibilities within the group
• Identifying barriers to goal achievement (such as communication issues, lack of authority or ownership, skill or knowledge gaps, lack of manpower, lack of organizational rewards or support, lack of direction or leadership, etc.)
• Developing strategies/plans to optimize communication and coordination between employees within the same work group, as well as outside work groups
• Developing follow-up strategies (and mechanisms) to monitor performance improvements and make additional corrections

In many cases, there are additional (usually preparatory) steps that also accompany teambuilding activities – for example, organizational surveys may be administered to highlight important issues impacting the team, or one-on-one interviews with team members may be conducted to summarize key topics prior to the actual group teambuilding meeting.

PDP can be counted on to partner with your organization through each step of the teambuilding process, including the determination of what specific teambuilding activities are most appropriate for your situation.

Maintain Your Success

Successful organizations never rest on their laurels or accomplishments – instead, constant improvement and innovation is the norm.

It is important that this focus on constant improvement and innovation not only target technology and production-related issues. Instead, the workforce of the organization – particularly the managerial and leadership cadre – also has to be an area where constant improvement and innovation is the norm.

Each organization needs to be asking the following questions: Are our leaders and managers continually innovating and improving? In addition, are they regularly updating their skills, their knowledge, their abilities – and their perspective? PDP helps companies of all sizes ensure that their managers and leaders are enhancing their skills – and are innovating and growing.

Mentoring Programs

Mentoring programs involve pairing a more junior-level employee with a more senior-level employee for the purposes of professional and personal growth. In well-designed programs, both the mentor and the mentee experience this type of growth.

Mentoring programs are an invaluable tool for building bench strength within the organization, and for increasing the capabilities of every individual in the workforce. In addition to creating a more skilled workforce, having a mentoring program can greatly help with employee retention issues – many employees (particularly so-called “Generation X and Generation Y” employees) need to work in an environment that provides challenge and development opportunities, and mentoring programs can help meet this need.

As the pace of today’s business environment continues to accelerate, successful organizations realize that they can no longer wait for needed mentoring and coaching to occur naturally — with today’s fast-paced environments, this “natural” or informal mentoring does not occur with any regularity. In addition, having a more formalized mentoring process allows the organization to shape the content and curricula of the mentoring program, helping to ensure that organizationally-relevant skills and competencies are developed as part of the process.

Most mentoring programs are at least one year in duration, with a formalized kick-off meeting, quarterly group follow-up meetings, and ongoing mentor/ mentee meetings to implement the mentee’s development plan and evaluate progress. Those participating as mentees generally set goals in categories such as the following:

• “Professional Development” goals (i.e., leadership skills and managerial competencies)
• “Company Knowledge” goals (i.e., learning more about their current organization, including the inter-relationships of key departments, learning more about business operations, learning more about corporate culture issues, etc.)
• “Personal Goals” (i.e., finishing a college degree or pursuing a graduate degree; quitting smoking, learning a foreign language, etc.).

The setting of goals in each of the above categories results in a well-rounded development plan for each program participant.

While the format and content of a mentoring program needs to be customized to capture the business outcomes most important to the organization, most mentoring programs include the following steps:

• Identifying the desired purpose and outcome of the mentoring program, and developing a program structure to meet these objectives (i.e., determining program length and content; determining if a 1-on-1 or team-based mentoring approach is appropriate, etc.)
• Determining how the mentoring program aligns with existing talent management, training, succession planning, and other human capital strategies
• Identifying key internal resources to sponsor, implement, and provide ongoing support for the program
• Determining program participants (identifying criteria for mentee selection, identifying a pool of mentors, identifying mentee participants)
• Determining the program kick-off and Orientation logistics (length of program, determining a meeting site appropriate for the unique demands of mentoring programs, etc.)
• Creating training materials, development plan formats, and other program materials
• Conducting the Orientation program, monitoring mentee progress, and evaluating the mentoring program
• Preparing an overall summary of program results

PDP can provide assistance with all aspects of mentoring program design, and can help ensure that your mentoring efforts are a success.