Who's Behind You

Succession planning is a topic most people ignore, much like planning a funeral before one passes. This does not make it any less important, and in fact underscores how common the need is and how great the concern should be, along with the training of new employees.  The utility workforce, as with most marketplaces, is aging, and boomers are looking at their retirement options.

Depending on the employment position, in the utility world this can be even greater based on the fact that outside crew work is hard on the body and can speed up the retirement process. Downsizing due to rate concerns and mergers is also a business reality, creating the option for early retirement. Some utility providers have created a robust succession planning processes, and others realize this is an area still needed to address. Attracting new talent and offering competitive compensation and benefits is a challenge utilities are confronting.

Succession planning is the process for identifying and developing people from within an organization, ideally, with the potential to fill key positions in the company. When done properly, it increases the pool of experienced and capable employees that are able to assume these roles as they become available.   The process involves identifying replacement personnel for key roles.

Effective succession planning requires building a series of feeder groups up and down the entire leadership pipeline. In contrast, replacement planning is focused narrowly on identifying specific back-up candidates for given senior management positions. For the most part, position-driven replacement planning (often referred to as the "hit by a bus scenario") is a forecast of sorts, which generally does not have a substantial impact on outcomes.

Succession planning is certainly not a new phenomenon. Businesses and organizations have wrestled with ways to identify, develop, and retain talent for years. The more recent sense of urgency comes out of the higher demands in a global market with the retirement of the Baby Boomers and the widening talent gap.

Here are four practical ideas on how to get more impact from succession planning efforts, taken from an article in the Harvard Business Review¹:

• Change the name of the process to from Succession Planning to Succession Development
• Measure outcomes, not process
• Keep it simple
• Stay realistic

Perception is key, so in changing one word the objective transitions to development – the most important part of the plan.  Greater emphasis is on what is measureable, rather than a process identifying a goal.  The metrics to establish for succession development might include goals like the percent of vacancies that are actually filled with an internal promotion vs. an external hire, or the percent of promotions that actually come from the high-potential pool. 

The third idea is certainly not a novel one, but one worth repeating.  Since the planning process is only a precursor to focus on development, it doesn't need to be perfect. More sophisticated assessments can be built into the development process and administered in the action steps, rather than taking too much time in complicating the initial plan.  Finally, keep it real – meaning that communicating succession plans and development establish commitments and promises.  Unrealistic development plans can be fatal to an organization.

Succession planning/development is the process to ensure that employees are recruited and developed to fill key roles within a company. Through the succession planning process, it allows an organization to recruit superior employees, develop their knowledge, skills, and abilities, and prepare them for advancement or promotion into ever more challenging roles. Actively engaging in succession development ensures that employees are constantly prepared to fill each needed role.