It’s January 2020. Do you know what that means? It means succession planning. If you do nothing else this month, start your succession planning. Succession planning is one of the most important parts of leadership development. Why? Because you are going to lose people this year. It is inevitable. The baby-boomer generation is retiring at alarming speeds and people are leaving for a variety of reasons, whether voluntarily, involuntarily, or in some dreadful cases, tragically.

Things happen; life happens. And when they leave, all that intellectual capital leaves with them. Are you prepared? Is your first thought to place an internal candidate to “warm the spot” while you recruit, or are you going to go with an internal candidate just because they are there and, “they seem like the next logical choice,” whether they are qualified or not? WRONG ANSWER! That is called replacement planning, and while it may be convenient, it is not necessarily the best solution.

Succession planning, as part of a leadership development program, can mean wonderful things for an organization. If designed right, as a bottom-up strategy, it can help you identify those employees AT ALL LEVELS who have the potential to be developed into amazing leaders for your organization. This promotes self-development, employee engagement and retains the best employees.

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How are you taking care of your employees during the holidays?

The holidays are considered a time of year when families gather the most. Consider this: are your newer employees able to enjoy this time with family? Is the time off policy equitable in your organization or are you, as a leader, shackled to the “way we’ve always done things” mentality of your organization’s culture? Are new employees offered the same time off considerations as those with seniority, or are they just the “low man on the totem pole” and have to wait for another new employee to come before enjoying the luxuries of seniority? Are you having problems retaining employees?

When you round on your employees (and as a leader you should be rounding regularly on your employees), ask them if they feel they get enough time off during the holidays. Ask them if they feel the culture of holiday time off requests are equitable for ALL employees. Then, look at your holiday PTO policies. Oh! You don’t have a separate one for holidays and regular time off? Interesting. Have these policies kept up with the newer workplace standards and the expectations of current generations? Studies have shown that current generations value time off. It does not mean they will work any less hard or be unproductive. They are just looking for that work-life balance.

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