Elearning! August - September

2013

Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.

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Succession Management More Than Just a Plan IDENTIFYING, DEVELOPING AND RETAINING TALENT FOR CRITICAL ROLES IN THE FUTURE. Te executive team at a North American manufacturing company sat quietly in the boardroom, wondering what the urgent meeting was all about. Team members soon found out: the company's senior engineer was leaving immediately to work for a competitor. It was a signifcant blow, since he was directing the implementation of a new, critically important production process. His departure could mean disrupted assembly lines, insufcient inventory levels, and delayed customer shipments. Te frst order of business was crisis management — including scrambling to fnd someone to take his place. Te second was coming up with a longer-range plan for succession management, both to retain people in critical roles and to make sure successors are in place. To avoid such nightmare scenarios, many organizations are taking action on succession management. Two simple steps can go a long way: Connecting succession management and career development processes. Te engineer who lef had expressed an interest in moving into an executive leadership role on many occasions, 1 36 August / September 2013 Elearning! but those discussions were never linked to the company's succession-management plans. Ofering a clear development plan that aligned with his career aspirations might have kept him from making a leap to a competitor. Rolling out succession beyond the executive level. Had the company's succession plan extended to other levels and key roles in the company, a successor for this role would have been identifed and trained. In addition, employees from other departments with the necessary project management skills would have been identifed and ready to step in. 2 SUCCESSION PLANNING'S EVOLUTION Succession planning has come of age over the past decade, driven by increased global competition, intense corporate governance requirements, and dramatic changes impacting workforce demographics and mobility. Succession initiatives have evolved from narrow programs that only identify talent ready to fll top executive roles into comprehensive management systems that forecast talent gaps, predict domino efects if one

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