The transition of people in and out of your business is a constant given. As business demands change, roles change; as peoples’ situations change, their employment needs change. You will always have positions that need filling. Dean’s Professional Services has committed 27 years to offering a partnership-based solution to our clients and a career home-base for our employees. Empowering leadership development and encouraging up-skilling our workforce is a necessity that we have always incorporated. If you haven’t developed a strategy to create leadership roles for your staff- NOW is the time to plan!
3 Tips to Follow when creating a Succession Planning Strategy
Evaluate the Key Roles for your Leadership Development or Succession Plan — Start by identifying the key leadership positions as well as the duties, skills and abilities required to serve in those positions. Assessing your employees is an integral part of succession planning. You need to know what storehouse of skills and knowledge you already have in-house to determine what gaps exist compared to your personnel plans.
Encourage Key Employees to continue their education and training. Consider making a real investment in your employees (and your company’s) future by supporting key leadership candidates to continue their education. This support can be as simple as providing flexible scheduling to accommodate their educational endeavors providing tuition reimbursement assistance or creating an in-house leadership development program.
Develop Rewards and Incentive Systems –Incentives are great tools to motivate employees to go above and beyond. They are not meant to reward employees for doing what is expected of them. An incentive can encourage excellent employees to go the extra mile, instead of bringing up a non-performer to an acceptable level of performance.
So remember, do not be driven by the crisis – The time to start planning your succession strategies is long before you anticipate having to make that change and the last thing you want is to be performing in a “management by crisis” mode. You will not likely be able to transform a new employee into a leader overnight. Start your talent search and development processes early. It is better to have too many options than to have a few.
Continue to revaluate and update your plan, including the key roles and positions, and check in to determine what is working and not working. Your current plan and program should take into consideration your company’s current state of evolution.
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to improve and enhance your business by up-skilling your staff through online courses we provide through our partnership with EdVantage and The PeopleMatter Project. Don’t wait! Get started with our complimentary Leadership Development Courses.