Untitled - Saigontre

C H A P T E R 6
STARTING A SYSTEMATIC PROGRAM
An organization should be ready to start a systematic succession planning and
management (SP&M) program once the case has been persuasively made that
one is needed. Starting a systematic SP&M program usually involves taking
such actions as conducting a risk analysis and building a commitment to
change; determining roles in the SP&M program; formulating a mission statement;
writing a program policy; clarifying the procedures; identifying groups
targeted for action; defining the roles in the SP&M program of the CEO, senior
managers, and others; and setting program priorities. This chapter focuses on
these issues.
Conducting a Risk Analysis and Building a Commitment
to Change
Where do an organization’s leaders begin in conducting a risk analysis? In
building a commitment to change? Those are, of course, related questions.
A risk analysis is simply an assessment of what level of risk an organization
faces owing to the loss of key people. (Key people exist at all levels and not
just at the top.) The risk analysis is conducted in one of several ways. For
example, one way has been mentioned earlier in this book. First, the organization’s
payroll system is used to project the estimated dates of retirement
eligibility for the entire workforce. Second, the percentage of the whole organization
eligible for retirement over rolling three-year periods is assessed.
Third, the same analysis is done by job code, geographical location, functional
area or department, and hierarchical level. The aim is to cast a wide net, looking
for trouble spots where high percentages of a whole group, such as the
entire accounting department or the St. Louis office, for example, would be
eligible for retirement during a given three-year period. Use three-year periods
because problems may not be apparent in a single year. But if the cumulative
percentage of the retirement-eligible workforce over a rolling three-year period
is high—say, over 50 percent—then you can mark it as a trouble spot and
move on.
The goal of this exercise is to find parts of the organization where the risks
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