THERE's a certain maxim applied to injuries in the NFL that goes along the lines of ‘that’s too bad, next man up’. Dan Pastorini goes down, Jim Plunkett steps in. There may be sympathy, but the important thing is that someone else will walk right into that huddle and play carries on.
Now in the general world of work we are not just quite as male dominated as the starting offence for the 1980 Oakland Raiders, so perhaps it’s more appropriate to say next ‘person’ up. Either way, the principle remains the same.
When we hear that a staff member is leaving (voluntarily or otherwise) the first thing we consider is: do they need to be replaced. Usually, unless the company has planned efficiencies built into its strategy, the answer will be yes. Now for many roles the business can carry on until such times as a replacement is found and the overall impact will be minimal. It’s not a life or death issue.
What happens, however, when a critical role is vacated? Unfortunately, this is where a lot of companies haven’t employed sufficient forward thinking. The clue is in the word itself however, it’s called a ‘critical’ role for a reason; it’s essential to the business.
One of the biggest mistake companies make is that don’t actually sit down and identify these roles in the first place. They don’t analyse where these single points of failure are. Where, as Yeats put it, without these employees “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”.
And if critical roles have not been identified (or even thought about) it’s very unlikely that a contingency strategy for the short term will have been developed, ie consideration given to who will plug that gap until a replacement is sourced. Now plugging the gap can generally be done in two ways.
The work can be divided out across a team of staff who have been sufficiently cross skilled to undertake different aspects of the role, or it can be a case of next person up and there is an under-study (or understudies) with sufficient ability and knowledge ready to step in.
But to be in that more proactive position requires analysing the role and understanding the skills associated with it first, then ensuring that those skills identified have been imparted to other staff in the current workforce. Typically, this will be either through a programme of cross training, such that multiple people can pick up smaller pieces of the role, or via a development program where there are staff identified and readied to step up as and when an opportunity presents itself.
These staff will have been given sufficient training, development and practical experience to do the job in the round (a really good company would also keep its finger on the pulse of the employment market so they know what talent is available outside the business and how much they are going to cost to attract in, if necessary).
Succession planning therefore is no longer about identifying those one or two people who seem to have ‘what it takes’ to succeed in the business. It’s about developing a proper talent management strategy where the business ensures that there are no longer single points of failure and that there is a rich vein of skilled and experienced staff available as necessary.
It means investing time and resource into staff with the purpose of having a ready-made supply of ‘next people up’, whether that be for the short or longer term.
:: Barry Shannon (bshannon@cayan.com) is HR director at Cayan in Belfast.
