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7 Deadly Sins of Succession Planning
A multitude of research points to the fact that the majority of firms don’t have a viable succession planning strategy. This is really problematic when combined with some of the other trends we’re seeing. Baby boomers are continuing to leave the workforce, employee engagement continues to challenge most organizations and retention rates are falling. If you aren’t doing succession planning, how are you coping with the changing face of your workforce as older workers transition to retirement? How are you addressing the high turnover rates becoming increasingly common across so many industries?
The churn caused by leadership turnover is only one part of the issue. You need to be prepared for all types of turnover in order to keep your projects running smoothly. Have you ever lost a really key employee in the middle of a project? You probably have at some point, and if that’s the case then you know how disruptive it can be. Over-burdened and over-utilized team members will feel the strain, and if you don’t have succession plans in place, you could be adding to an already difficult situation.
So, why are we losing these key employees and what can be done to keep them? Well, although there could be a number of contributing factors, one of the most common reasons associated with the departure of top performers is a lack of career development.
What is Succession Planning?
Succession planning helps you identify and develop employees with the potential to fill key business and leadership positions within the company. Succession planning increases the availability of experienced and capable employees that are prepared to assume these roles as they become available. From recruiting the right candidate to developing new leadership from within, succession planning is crucial for an organization to meet its strategic vision and goals.
Are You Committing Any of the Seven Deadly Sins? Let’s See.
Sin #1 – You Set It and Forget It
This sin quickly results in outdated plans and inappropriate strategies. People may still leave the company, availability of employees on the plan may change, and employees may gain new skills or experience. The company could undergo major change, like a merger or acquisition. There is a fluidity to business strategy that should be reflected in your people planning.
Plans should be reviewed at least yearly and whenever changes in company direction or goals are made. When you review plans, ensure the potential successors are still viable by taking a look at your top performers, reviewing employment records, and watching out for new talent that might be a good fit.
Sin #2 – You Have No Backup Plan
The second sin happens when your plans are too narrow. If your plans only include one person and that person leaves, this can put you in a difficult position. Neglecting to create a backup plan restricts your ability to adjust to workforce changes.
When you review your plans, check for backup successors, and if none exist, identify some. Re-evaluate the backup employees as you complete your regular reviews of succession plans.
Sin #3 – You Fail To Develop Successors
Once a plan is setup, it’s time to provide development opportunities to your successors. Get them ready to be successful in the potential new roll. Failing to tie your succession planning to development strategy has plenty of consequences. What happens when an employee is promoted to a leadership role that they aren’t prepared for? A weak leader can have a very negative impact on team culture. Weak leadership can also erode workforce confidence. And for the potential successors, being moved into a role they are unprepared for is an extremely negative experience.
Analyze an employee’s skills, competencies and experiences, and look for resources, such as training courses or mentoring programs, to support those needs. Review the employee’s career path and consider lateral moves that could aid in your planning.
Sin #4 – No Manager Involvement
Managers know their employees and interact with them on a regular basis, and by leaving them out you are overlooking a good source for information.
Effective succession planning includes managers. Give them a voice and take their feedback into consideration. This tactic not only broadens your search, but fosters engagement. Both managers and team members feel they have a voice and are represented in the company’s planning. It also helps managers at the team level by keeping them in touch with who is being considered for succession.
Sin #5 – You Fail to Consider Your Entire Workforce
If you only look at your identified high potential employees, you may miss hidden talent because in many cases they are typically evaluated on the basis of ‘fit’ for their current position without broadening the discussion to include other roles in the organization. Larger organizations in particular may have “unknown” employees who should be considered – the greater the number of employees, the harder it becomes to ensure you are considering all of the right people.
So, make sure you look across the company’s entire workforce. Be sure to consider all important criteria, not just current skills, competencies and history. Look at employee goals and manager recommendations. Do any employees have a career path in place that is already providing training opportunities ideal for the succession plan? Enlist help to discover talent throughout organization – again, give your managers and other key company employees a voice.
Sin # 6 – You Fail to Consider the Employee’s Needs
This sin can lead to engagement and retention issues, in addition to poor job satisfaction. It’s all about communication. You can’t create, implement, and maintain a succession plan in a vacuum. Your ideal candidate to become the next CEO may have very different priorities in mind for life and/or career.
Listen to what your employees say they want. This encourages engagement, positively impacts attrition rates, improves job satisfaction, contributes to overall business success, and demonstrates support for employees’ goals & aspirations.
Sin #7 – You Keep Employees in the Dark
If employees are not aware that there are opportunities available for them within the organization, they may look outside the company. This can lead to lack of engagement, which affects the bottom line. It may not always make sense to provide the full picture to a potential successor, but it is in your best interest to involve them to the degree that you deem appropriate.
There is a lot of debate on how involved employees should be in succession planning, but ultimately, not involving them can have negative consequences. By telling employees they are on a plan, you show that you are considering their long-term involvement at the company and driving awareness that can motivate self-development. You can never go wrong with more communication.
Under-Utilized Features: Employee Recognition , 360 Reviews, and Project Appraisals
As a part of our underused Talent Management features series, we wanted to highlight some of the different ways you can recognize the accomplishments of your employees. In this post, we will walk through three underused Talent Management features: Employee Recognition, 360 Reviews, and Project Appraisals. Each of these features makes it easy for you to recognize your employees and for your employees to recognize each other.
We often talk about the modern workforce in our posts, but I think the desire for recognition is pretty universal. Your employees want to feel like they are contributing to your business and they want to know that they are having a positive impact on their colleagues. It can be difficult to find the time to create these types of programs and that’s why we’ve built features into Talent Management to help you create a positive culture of recognition and collaboration. If you’d like to learn more or see these features in action, check out our recent demo called “Give Employees What They Crave: Recognition.”
#1) Employee Recognition
Within Deltek Talent Performance, employees can submit recognition for other employees in the organization. The employee giving recognition can provide information by selecting “create new employee recognition” and inputting information for one or more employees. They can include specifics about the situation and the skills and competencies that the employee or team demonstrated.
Once employee recognition has been given, the employee who gave this recognition can see the feedback they’ve given and received, and can drill down to view the details of each entry. This screen lists recognition created by the logged in user, as well as recognition submitted by other employees to recognize the currently logged in user.
Employees can view the feedback they have given and received
When the entry is submitted, an email notification is sent to the employee being recognized, his or her manager, and the user who submitted the entry. Additionally, both the manager and employee can access recognition as a part of the employee’s performance review.
Include Employee Recognition entries in performance discussions
#2) 360 Reviews
Another way to collect information is through the use of 360 appraisals. These reviews expand the performance process from managers/team leads and employees to others who have information about the employee’s performance (both inside and outside of the organization). Managers can easily launch a 360 using a workflow template and choose who the feedback will be requested from.
360 Reviews are easy and intuitive to launch and use
If you enable the option, employees can also recommended others they would like to participate. It is also possible to keep the participants anonymous in the employee’s view. Once all participants are confirmed, the manager can review and advance the 360 to the next phase. At this point, participants in the 360 receive an email notification with a link to the solution to complete their task. They are able to review the items included in the form, as well as provide comments where applicable.
As participants complete the review, managers can view who has/hasn’t completed their tasks. They can drill-down into each completed review to see individual responses. They also have a summary view available to them to see results side-by-side.
All completed 360s are stored within the employee’s past appraisals section
Additionally, a project team lead can launch project 360s for members of the project team. External participants (such as the client they worked with) can also be included to obtain feedback on project delivery. Reports on 360s are also available, making it easy to see what feedback is being captured.
#3 Project-Based Appraisals
What can you do to make sure that the feedback you’re providing your employees is both timely and relevant? One answer may be at your fingertips. There are many different ways to manage employee performance, ranging from annual performance reviews to continuous feedback sessions. Deltek’s strong focus on projects means we also provide project-based appraisals for your project team members. This makes it easy to involve project managers in the review process and solicit feedback on employee performance at the end of projects they are engaged in.
Within Talent Development, project teams can be added and team members and a team lead established.
As a part of the project team, performance reviews can be launched for team members by the team lead.
Project reviews can include goals, competencies, achievements, and other components. These components are then available for review and scoring by the team lead. This means your employees are getting relevant and timely feedback that can be immediately applied to their next project. You will create a culture of performance and recognition while helping your employees to develop and advance more quickly.
If you are looking for ways to drive employee engagement and improve performance across your project teams, then you’ve found a great place to get started with these features.
The three features discussed here are easy to use and easy to implement. Make sure to subscribe to hear more about ways you could be leveraging your Talent Management solution more fully.
Under-Utilized Features: Jobseeker Certifications
In this series, we are going to explore some of the features that Deltek Talent Management offers, but that we have found are under-utilized. You may have started with the basics and planned to expand later or maybe you missed out on some of the new features that came out during software releases. No matter where you are today with your Talent Management solution we are going to shine a spotlight on areas that will help you leverage the full solution and make it easier for you to do the things you need to do.
Did you know that you can collect candidate certification details during the application process? This standard system functionality, which was added in our recent 15.1 software release, will help you to identify the most qualified candidates faster by highlighting their professional certifications and licenses. Once you’ve found the perfect candidate, you’ll be able to take the guesswork out of allocating your new resource. This is another way to keep the information you need at your fingertips.
We are seeing a major shift in the talent marketplace. In the past, the ball was in the employer’s court, but low unemployment and a growing economy has shifted the ball to the court of the employee or candidate.
Many candidates are entertaining multiple options and routinely receive multiple offers. According to research conducted by Deltek in multiple industries; including Architecture and Engineering, Government Contracting, and Consulting, project focused organizations are finding it increasingly difficult to locate and acquire qualified talent. The organizations that are most successful at acquiring top talent know how to move fast by leveraging the technology available to them. This feature can help you to quickly sort through candidates to find the qualifications you need for your next project.
Talent Management has always supported the collection of this information, but our 15.1 release made this feature much easier to, include in your process.
Automatically adding certifications to an employee’s learning record when they are hired will streamline your on-boarding process and eliminate the need for duplicate entry. This combination of features from Deltek Talent Acquisition and Deltek Talent Learning makes this capability more focused and embeds it into the workflows of the system.
Here’s how you can leverage this great feature in your own acquisition process:
When a job seeker applies, the request to upload certifications can be added as a step in the online application process. During the application process, candidates can select from the drop-down values you’ve provided or select other to add a different certification not already in the listing. This is a simple step for the job seeker that can give you powerful visibility into the candidates applying to your postings.
Above you can see Step 4 highlighted as part of the application process
Collect information on the type of certification and when it expires. This information will be recorded in the solution so that you won’t have to re-enter the certification or the expiration date if you hire that candidate
As a recruiter, you are now able to review the certifications that an applicant has provided, as well as search for applicants with desired certifications. This is also a great basis to use when creating candidate pools.
Certifications and descriptions are housed in the solution and can be viewed and included as a basis for reporting
Use the solution to exclude expired certifications
View and edit both internal and external certification under the employee’s learning profile
As a final step, leverage the solution to automatically add the certifications to the employee’s learning profile and save yourself the step of manually recording this information.
Look out for the next blog in the series on underused Talent management Features.
We will continue to explore ways that you can leverage your solution to acquire, develop, and retain top talent!
Quick Tips for Implementing Continuous Feedback
We get a lot of questions about engaging and retaining talent and in particular, millennial talent. Taking a good look at your performance management process can be a great place to gain some ground with your younger workers. A renewed focus on meaningful and timely feedback can go a long way toward improving your firm’s appeal to this generation. Keep in mind, however, that the desire for impactful feedback does not exclusively belong to a particular generation. All of your employees will benefit from continuous feedback cycles.
Getting started with continuous feedback can be overwhelming, especially since it is often a big departure from more traditional methods of managing performance. That being said, it’s also a very worthwhile investment whether you pair continuous feedback with existing appraisal cycles or switch to an entirely different methodology for managing performance.
Your organization, like many, may use one-to-one sessions informally, but you could be missing the opportunity to realize the results and outcomes typically associated with continuous feedback cycles. Detailed records and notes can help both managers and employees stay accountable to one another and drive even greater goal achievement. The ability to easily recall and refer to previous conversations can make a huge difference to employees and managers in the middle of an appraisal cycle. When you utilize the continuous feedback capabilities in Deltek Talent Management, you will have this information at your fingertips.
Continuous Feedback Records in Brilliant Talent Management allow you to refer to previous discussions.
Managers and employees can both view details and notes from prior sessions.
With this in mind, let’s take a look at some best practices to help you take your first big steps forward. An initial focus on training will set your organization up for success by ensuring that both managers and employees understand the short- and long-term purpose of feedback sessions. Since most of the work will happen between individual employees and their managers, it is especially important to create some excitement and buzz around this new methodology.
Here are 5 key points to emphasize when you begin training your workforce to implement Continuous Feedback:
- There should be clear reasons why the meetings are being held
- Create an agenda and set goals for the meeting
- Never meet just for the sake of meeting or to check a box
- Keep employees engaged by asking them to drive
- Give employees some control over their goals, development, and outcomes
Deltek Talent Management can enable both the preparatory steps and the effective execution of continuous feedback sessions. Managers will be able to schedule and add notes or files with the solution to allow the employee to prepare for the upcoming session.
Sessions can be scheduled, accepted, or declined within the solution. Add notes when the session is created to help both parties prepare for the meeting.
When a session is taking place, start by reviewing the purpose of the meeting, along with prior meeting notes, keys wins and noteworthy challenges since the previous meeting. Spend some time on progress toward development and goals that have been previously established. Part of this discussion may focus on past concerns, issues and lessons learned, but the larger focus should be around how to move forward, and what future goals should be.
Look to new project assignments for opportunities to create future goals that stretch performance to a new level. Also, take the time to understand where the employee wants to go in the organization. Are there ways that current or future projects can help prepare the employee for a new direction or even a new role in the organization? At the end of the session, make sure to review the topics that have been discussed, along with action items, takeaways, and expectations of progress before the next meeting.
Conducting these meetings face-to-face, as much as possible, will help your managers and employees build the solid and trusting relationships necessary to be truly effective during these discussions. And, make sure that you do this for all employees, including those that work remotely. Making use of video conferencing solutions can help you make certain that all employees receive the same treatment regardless of where in the world they work.
Here are an additional 5 tips to share with your managers to help ensure that their sessions are as impactful as possible
- Be on the receiving end more than the giving end
- Be ready only to steer, like assisting from the front passenger seat, rather than doing everything for the employee
- Practice active listening with the intent to understand, not just waiting for your turn to talk
- Use the time to build and strengthen relationships
- Energize and motivate employees by making sure each session is personalized to the employee – know your employees and make sure they get what they need from the sessions.