Succession Planning Paper
Succession Plan to Retain Employees
Marcella Westfall
Marcella.wesstfall@gmail.com
Keller Graduate School of Management - HRM 594
Professor Victoria Ashiru
September 28, 2014
My research paper is on a Succession Plan for the city of Miami– a plan that will outline the process of retiring employees and the strategic staffing plan that will those positions. This is important to me as a Human Resource professional because succession planning encourages staff development by promoting and retiring which sends a message to all employees that the organization is stern on developing employees. It also aids in continuity within the organization. In this paper I will discuss four elements of a succession …show more content…
plan that is needed to be assessed for a successful plan program: 1) roles and responsibilities, 2) recruitment strategies, 3) retention strategies, 4) training and development. This plan may persuade talented employees to remain with the organization versus looking for talent growth elsewhere. According to Strickler (2014), “It details the changes that will take place as leadership is transferred from one generation to the next.” The strategic goals of the organization must be identified for the practical design and execution of succession planning. I will use resources from the internet and personal experience to discuss and develop a succession plan. I will also look at some existing retirement succession plans that are already in existence, which will guide me through the process. I expect for the sources to provide me with the knowledge to understand the reason for the process, advantages and disadvantages of this type of plan.
The lack of succession planning is not uncommon in a majority of states. In a survey conducted by the International Public Management Association for Human Resources, only 37 percent of their members indicated that they had a formal workforce planning process in place (IPMA 2004, 1). Most departments within the City of Miami has some sort of workforce planning effort already in place which include the development of plans for staffing and succession, assessments of training needs, strategies and plans for recruitment and retention, and projections for retirement. This type of plan will take time to develop. The problem is that the City waits until the last minute to rehire for those that are retiring and wait until the last minute to train, if they train at all.
It’s important to know that workforce planning is not a static document that tries to predict the future or describe the past. Instead, it’s an effort to focus on developing information that can help a department director make staffing decisions for the short and long term. The plan is in place to help solve staffing problems and manage scheduled retirements. The goal of this process is to assist department directors in staffing their department to achieve its strategic goals.
Roles and Responsibilities
The department director involves the Department of Human Resources (DHR) in the strategic and operational planning process, while communication staffing needs to employees so they can take responsibility to learn new skills and get crossed trained in new areas of their department. DHR consults with department management, while analyzing the impact of implementing potential strategies on the department’s workforce, training programs and human resource policies. Department directors are responsible for allocation of resources and should drive the workforce planning process. DHR will be available to help and support department directors by acting as a consultant and resource. This assistance will be facilitated when all partners understand the business and business context. Below is a projected timeline that will provide a forum in which the departments address staffing-related issues. During the review, the departments will also introduce and prioritize position change request, which will be taken into consideration for implementation.
January – March Department of Human Resources (DHR) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will be available to consult as needed by departments updating their plan of action.
March Workforce planning session will be conducted with departments.
April – August Ongoing consultation and development of strategies to implement action plans.
June – July Funding recommendations to propose to Budget.
July – September DHR and OMB available to consult as needed by the departments in updating the plan of action.
September Workforce planning sessions will be conducted with each department.
October – February Ongoing consultation and development of strategies to implement action items.
Recruitment Strategies
The responses of these different state employees indicate that state agencies are aware of the need to engage in succession planning, but that they are either reluctant or unable to do so.
Most of the individuals I spoke with told me that although they were anxious to implement succession plans in their departments they lacked adequate funding. Several departments I examined have taken the first steps in workforce planning, but there is still much to be done. The first step agency officials should take to prepare a succession plan is to examine the literature that exists on how to create and implement a succession plan. By examining the literature, agency officials can begin to establish both the structure and the content of a succession …show more content…
plan.
Succession planning occurs as a series of steps or events that build on one another. Lavinga 2005, 8 provides a conceptual five-step process for developing a succession plan:
1. Analyze the organization’s current workforce capabilities (e.g., the people and competencies available right now)
2. Project the organization’s future workforce needs (people/competencies needed to do the work of the future)
3. Compare the current workforce to future workforce needs (i.e., to identify people/competency imbalances-both gaps and surpluses)
4. Develop HR policies, plans, and approaches to eliminate gaps and surpluses and therefore build the workforce of the future
5. Do it again and again. That is, put in place a permanent process to continually assess workforce needs and capabilities, identify gaps, and eliminate imbalances
Radtke 2001, lists some practical elements to consider in developing HR policies, plans and approaches in workforce planning:
Identify the competencies critical to the organization
Detail what the organization wants from each level or position
Describe what those functions will look like
Provide a means to monitor and evaluate performance
Define those means to support those functions, as well as the individuals in those functions, once the plan is in place.
Retention Strategies
Retention strategies should enhance workforce motivation, commitment, and performance around mission accomplishment (OPM 2014). Many times the City of Miami will find it necessary to go beyond traditional recruitment advertising by utilizing integrated marketing programs that include job postings, featured employer listings, email marketing campaigns, radio announcements and banner advertisements. To be effective, the city should determine its wants and needs and develop a plan to increase the brand awareness to effectively market their open positions to attract qualified talent.
Training and Development
Retention strategies implementation should measure the turnover rate and identify a process and the departments responsible for containing it. Manager should think better, bigger, brighter, broader, bolder, positive and set higher daring goals. One strategy that may help is the ability of the employee to speak his or her mind freely within the organization is key factor in employee retention. Employees like to feel as though they can offer ideas, feel free to criticize and commit to continuous improvement. If not, they continue to keep things to themselves and do not feel as though they are part of the team.
Offering an attractive and competitive compensation package is another retention strategy. Fair compensation alone does not guarantee employee loyalty, but offering below-market salaries does not make it easy for an employee to help keep retention. When offering benefits, they need to be quantified and qualitative. Although benefits are not the only reason why employees stick with a company, the benefits you offer can 't be markedly worse than those offered by your competitors and like-minded industries. Train your front-line, managers and administrators so they are crossed trained in other areas in the department. Improve managers ' leadership, communication and interpersonal skills through coaching, teaching, training and feedback. Rate these key skills in their evaluations, and tie compensation to their performance. Make sure your managers aren 't driving valuable talent away. It has been said several times that employees leave their job because of management and not the work. You should reiterate that the competencies and substantially invest in human capital irrespective of return of investment. Promote enhancement, advancement and progression opportunities. To nurture employee loyalty, implement a career ladder and ensure employees know what they must do to earn and move forward in progression. A clear professional development plan gives employees an incentive to stay with the company. Do away with you Performance Management System and use on the spot performance rewards. You should value your employees. Recognize outstanding achievements promptly and publicly, but also take time to commend on the many small contributions your staff makes every day to the organization 's vision, mission and growth. You have to be creative and think outside the box. Assess employee 's performance against the professional goals set in their performance agreement for annual appraisal and improves their proficiency. Identify the potential of the employees and to develop them for future positions and advancements.
Offering retention bonus to employee for longevity typically is rewarded with an annual raise and mandatory vacation time after so many years i.e, three, five or ten years. But why not offer other seniority-based rewards such as a paid membership in the employee 's professional association after one year, a paid membership to a local gymnasium and clubs after two years, and full reimbursement for the cost of the employee 's uniforms. If you build a high degree of recognition value into every reward you offer; employees will feel motivated to stay with the organization. Troubleshoot your reward system to make sure that what it is rewarding is what you really want to happen.
Encourage teamwork and build cross functional teams within the department. It takes effort to build an effective team, but the result is greater productivity, improved use of resources, improved customer service and increased morale. Give great emphasis on cross functional approach as it endorses acceptance and accountability. Ensure everyone understands the department 's purpose, mission or goal. Encourage discussion, participation and the sharing of ideas. Rotating leadership responsibilities also promotes cross training and professional development. Encourage team members to show appreciation to their colleagues for superior performance or achievement. I have learned that succession planning is a part of the process of preparing for the future of an organization. Does this mean you should only plan a succession path for your CEO? I would suggest that essentially every key position and key personnel in your organization is a candidate for a succession plan. The important impact is that it is not practically impossible to successfully promote someone. But it would be an asset to the department to have a trained person to take over the position being vacated. To be realistic, a succession plan must be planned years in advance of expected needs. To properly train a successor, the organization needs sufficient time to expose the people to the full spectrum of opportunities, as well as any desired or required outside education/experience expected. For example, if someone is expected to be a general manager, the number of departments, the types and ranges of technologies and processes, the level of knowledge about the company procedures and policies, markets and customers, suppliers, employees, and contractors will determine the time and depth of involvement. Additional resources, such as past experience and current knowledge that the individual brings to the process, will also affect the succession time frame.
Conclusion
One of the main purposes of succession planning is to identify groups of employees that state an intention to leave due to retirement or for some other reason.
Another purpose is to identify factors that might either influence the employee to not leave, delay exit, or, in the case of retirees, induce returning to work in some capacity after retirement. This will continue to be important in the future as employees continue to age. Although management succession planning can be problematic and even painful, it is vital to ensuring the continuity and perhaps even the continued existence of businesses following the departure of an employee. It may be helpful to consider succession planning as an extension of employee development programs. Succession planning, Marshall (1997) wrote in America 's Community Banker, "should reach deeply into an institution 's management ranks to prepare managers at all levels for career advancement, perhaps to the very top."
I would hope that if my plan was put into use, it would serves as a guide to help retain, cross train and empower employees with motivation to stay with their current employer. I would also hope that the employer would implement some of the ideas that were suggested in this paper. My research paper was designed to retain employees and give employers/management ideas on how to motivate employees for professional growth with the
organization.
References
International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA). (2004). Workforce Planning not a common practice, IPMA-HR study finds. International Public Management Association for Human Resources. Retrieved from: www.impa-hr.org/pdf/research/
Lavigna, B. (2005). The retirement wave bulge, boom or bust? PA Times 28
Marshall, WT. (June 1997). "How to Succeed with Management Succession Planning." America 's Community Banker 6, pg 6
OPM.gov (2014). Effective Succession Strategies. Human Capital Management. Retrieved from https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/human-capital-management/reference-materials/leadership-knowledge-management/successionstrategies.pdf
Radtke, J ed. (2001). Succession planning: Building a successful organization in a dynamic environment. (19 ed)
Strickler, Y. (2014). Succession Plans. Inc., Retrieved from: http://www.inc.com/encyclopedia/succession-plans.html
Marcella Westfall
Marcella.wesstfall@gmail.com
Keller Graduate School of Management - HRM 594
Professor Victoria Ashiru
September 28, 2014
My research paper is on a Succession Plan for the city of Miami– a plan that will outline the process of retiring employees and the strategic staffing plan that will those positions. This is important to me as a Human Resource professional because succession planning encourages staff development by promoting and retiring which sends a message to all employees that the organization is stern on developing employees. It also aids in continuity within the organization. In this paper I will discuss four elements of a succession …show more content…
plan that is needed to be assessed for a successful plan program: 1) roles and responsibilities, 2) recruitment strategies, 3) retention strategies, 4) training and development. This plan may persuade talented employees to remain with the organization versus looking for talent growth elsewhere. According to Strickler (2014), “It details the changes that will take place as leadership is transferred from one generation to the next.” The strategic goals of the organization must be identified for the practical design and execution of succession planning. I will use resources from the internet and personal experience to discuss and develop a succession plan. I will also look at some existing retirement succession plans that are already in existence, which will guide me through the process. I expect for the sources to provide me with the knowledge to understand the reason for the process, advantages and disadvantages of this type of plan.
The lack of succession planning is not uncommon in a majority of states. In a survey conducted by the International Public Management Association for Human Resources, only 37 percent of their members indicated that they had a formal workforce planning process in place (IPMA 2004, 1). Most departments within the City of Miami has some sort of workforce planning effort already in place which include the development of plans for staffing and succession, assessments of training needs, strategies and plans for recruitment and retention, and projections for retirement. This type of plan will take time to develop. The problem is that the City waits until the last minute to rehire for those that are retiring and wait until the last minute to train, if they train at all.
It’s important to know that workforce planning is not a static document that tries to predict the future or describe the past. Instead, it’s an effort to focus on developing information that can help a department director make staffing decisions for the short and long term. The plan is in place to help solve staffing problems and manage scheduled retirements. The goal of this process is to assist department directors in staffing their department to achieve its strategic goals.
Roles and Responsibilities
The department director involves the Department of Human Resources (DHR) in the strategic and operational planning process, while communication staffing needs to employees so they can take responsibility to learn new skills and get crossed trained in new areas of their department. DHR consults with department management, while analyzing the impact of implementing potential strategies on the department’s workforce, training programs and human resource policies. Department directors are responsible for allocation of resources and should drive the workforce planning process. DHR will be available to help and support department directors by acting as a consultant and resource. This assistance will be facilitated when all partners understand the business and business context. Below is a projected timeline that will provide a forum in which the departments address staffing-related issues. During the review, the departments will also introduce and prioritize position change request, which will be taken into consideration for implementation.
January – March Department of Human Resources (DHR) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will be available to consult as needed by departments updating their plan of action.
March Workforce planning session will be conducted with departments.
April – August Ongoing consultation and development of strategies to implement action plans.
June – July Funding recommendations to propose to Budget.
July – September DHR and OMB available to consult as needed by the departments in updating the plan of action.
September Workforce planning sessions will be conducted with each department.
October – February Ongoing consultation and development of strategies to implement action items.
Recruitment Strategies
The responses of these different state employees indicate that state agencies are aware of the need to engage in succession planning, but that they are either reluctant or unable to do so.
Most of the individuals I spoke with told me that although they were anxious to implement succession plans in their departments they lacked adequate funding. Several departments I examined have taken the first steps in workforce planning, but there is still much to be done. The first step agency officials should take to prepare a succession plan is to examine the literature that exists on how to create and implement a succession plan. By examining the literature, agency officials can begin to establish both the structure and the content of a succession …show more content…
plan.
Succession planning occurs as a series of steps or events that build on one another. Lavinga 2005, 8 provides a conceptual five-step process for developing a succession plan:
1. Analyze the organization’s current workforce capabilities (e.g., the people and competencies available right now)
2. Project the organization’s future workforce needs (people/competencies needed to do the work of the future)
3. Compare the current workforce to future workforce needs (i.e., to identify people/competency imbalances-both gaps and surpluses)
4. Develop HR policies, plans, and approaches to eliminate gaps and surpluses and therefore build the workforce of the future
5. Do it again and again. That is, put in place a permanent process to continually assess workforce needs and capabilities, identify gaps, and eliminate imbalances
Radtke 2001, lists some practical elements to consider in developing HR policies, plans and approaches in workforce planning:
Identify the competencies critical to the organization
Detail what the organization wants from each level or position
Describe what those functions will look like
Provide a means to monitor and evaluate performance
Define those means to support those functions, as well as the individuals in those functions, once the plan is in place.
Retention Strategies
Retention strategies should enhance workforce motivation, commitment, and performance around mission accomplishment (OPM 2014). Many times the City of Miami will find it necessary to go beyond traditional recruitment advertising by utilizing integrated marketing programs that include job postings, featured employer listings, email marketing campaigns, radio announcements and banner advertisements. To be effective, the city should determine its wants and needs and develop a plan to increase the brand awareness to effectively market their open positions to attract qualified talent.
Training and Development
Retention strategies implementation should measure the turnover rate and identify a process and the departments responsible for containing it. Manager should think better, bigger, brighter, broader, bolder, positive and set higher daring goals. One strategy that may help is the ability of the employee to speak his or her mind freely within the organization is key factor in employee retention. Employees like to feel as though they can offer ideas, feel free to criticize and commit to continuous improvement. If not, they continue to keep things to themselves and do not feel as though they are part of the team.
Offering an attractive and competitive compensation package is another retention strategy. Fair compensation alone does not guarantee employee loyalty, but offering below-market salaries does not make it easy for an employee to help keep retention. When offering benefits, they need to be quantified and qualitative. Although benefits are not the only reason why employees stick with a company, the benefits you offer can 't be markedly worse than those offered by your competitors and like-minded industries. Train your front-line, managers and administrators so they are crossed trained in other areas in the department. Improve managers ' leadership, communication and interpersonal skills through coaching, teaching, training and feedback. Rate these key skills in their evaluations, and tie compensation to their performance. Make sure your managers aren 't driving valuable talent away. It has been said several times that employees leave their job because of management and not the work. You should reiterate that the competencies and substantially invest in human capital irrespective of return of investment. Promote enhancement, advancement and progression opportunities. To nurture employee loyalty, implement a career ladder and ensure employees know what they must do to earn and move forward in progression. A clear professional development plan gives employees an incentive to stay with the company. Do away with you Performance Management System and use on the spot performance rewards. You should value your employees. Recognize outstanding achievements promptly and publicly, but also take time to commend on the many small contributions your staff makes every day to the organization 's vision, mission and growth. You have to be creative and think outside the box. Assess employee 's performance against the professional goals set in their performance agreement for annual appraisal and improves their proficiency. Identify the potential of the employees and to develop them for future positions and advancements.
Offering retention bonus to employee for longevity typically is rewarded with an annual raise and mandatory vacation time after so many years i.e, three, five or ten years. But why not offer other seniority-based rewards such as a paid membership in the employee 's professional association after one year, a paid membership to a local gymnasium and clubs after two years, and full reimbursement for the cost of the employee 's uniforms. If you build a high degree of recognition value into every reward you offer; employees will feel motivated to stay with the organization. Troubleshoot your reward system to make sure that what it is rewarding is what you really want to happen.
Encourage teamwork and build cross functional teams within the department. It takes effort to build an effective team, but the result is greater productivity, improved use of resources, improved customer service and increased morale. Give great emphasis on cross functional approach as it endorses acceptance and accountability. Ensure everyone understands the department 's purpose, mission or goal. Encourage discussion, participation and the sharing of ideas. Rotating leadership responsibilities also promotes cross training and professional development. Encourage team members to show appreciation to their colleagues for superior performance or achievement. I have learned that succession planning is a part of the process of preparing for the future of an organization. Does this mean you should only plan a succession path for your CEO? I would suggest that essentially every key position and key personnel in your organization is a candidate for a succession plan. The important impact is that it is not practically impossible to successfully promote someone. But it would be an asset to the department to have a trained person to take over the position being vacated. To be realistic, a succession plan must be planned years in advance of expected needs. To properly train a successor, the organization needs sufficient time to expose the people to the full spectrum of opportunities, as well as any desired or required outside education/experience expected. For example, if someone is expected to be a general manager, the number of departments, the types and ranges of technologies and processes, the level of knowledge about the company procedures and policies, markets and customers, suppliers, employees, and contractors will determine the time and depth of involvement. Additional resources, such as past experience and current knowledge that the individual brings to the process, will also affect the succession time frame.
Conclusion
One of the main purposes of succession planning is to identify groups of employees that state an intention to leave due to retirement or for some other reason.
Another purpose is to identify factors that might either influence the employee to not leave, delay exit, or, in the case of retirees, induce returning to work in some capacity after retirement. This will continue to be important in the future as employees continue to age. Although management succession planning can be problematic and even painful, it is vital to ensuring the continuity and perhaps even the continued existence of businesses following the departure of an employee. It may be helpful to consider succession planning as an extension of employee development programs. Succession planning, Marshall (1997) wrote in America 's Community Banker, "should reach deeply into an institution 's management ranks to prepare managers at all levels for career advancement, perhaps to the very top."
I would hope that if my plan was put into use, it would serves as a guide to help retain, cross train and empower employees with motivation to stay with their current employer. I would also hope that the employer would implement some of the ideas that were suggested in this paper. My research paper was designed to retain employees and give employers/management ideas on how to motivate employees for professional growth with the
organization.
References
International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA). (2004). Workforce Planning not a common practice, IPMA-HR study finds. International Public Management Association for Human Resources. Retrieved from: www.impa-hr.org/pdf/research/
Lavigna, B. (2005). The retirement wave bulge, boom or bust? PA Times 28
Marshall, WT. (June 1997). "How to Succeed with Management Succession Planning." America 's Community Banker 6, pg 6
OPM.gov (2014). Effective Succession Strategies. Human Capital Management. Retrieved from https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/human-capital-management/reference-materials/leadership-knowledge-management/successionstrategies.pdf
Radtke, J ed. (2001). Succession planning: Building a successful organization in a dynamic environment. (19 ed)
Strickler, Y. (2014). Succession Plans. Inc., Retrieved from: http://www.inc.com/encyclopedia/succession-plans.html