INTEGRATING WORKFORCE PLANNING AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Transcription

1 INTEGRATING WORKFORCE PLANNING AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT Richard L. Gerstberger, P.E. TAP Resource Development Group, Inc West 32 nd Ave Denver, CO ABSTRACT The statistics abound as to the impact that aging baby-boomers are starting to have on the workforce. To site a few, Business 2.0 magazine projects a a shortage of 5.3 million skilled workers by 2010 and, bringing this closer to home, American City & County magazine recently cited a study that identified the average age of public works directors to be 50. The workforce crisis is no longer looming; it is here. In this environment, it is fair to ask, are you prepared? Work on this problem has been going on for a number of years with a number of utilities, many of whom have taken a proactive stance in managing today s changing workplace. Quite simply, these leaders understand that to continue to meet or exceed the regulatory, customer, financial, operational, and customer goals of their utility or public works agency, they need to have organizational continuity, which is not easy with today s aging baby boomers. The key to attaining this organizational continuity is succession planning. We have found time and time again that this means having a sound leadership development and succession process in place and an effective performance management system to insure implementation. What is leadership in today s world, how do we develop it, and what does it take to make a difference? John Kotter in his book, Leading Change, states that leadership..defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles. Dr. William Schneider, author of The Reengineering Alternative and a TAP Resource business partner, defines leadership as Creating a vision and direction for the organization and mobilizing people to accomplish them. Dr. Schneider also indicates that to effectively develop leadership within the organization it is important to understand the organization at its core. Comprehensive leadership development and succession planning involves aligning leadership with the organization for which the leader is responsible. For that reason, we recommend a four step process for effective succession planning: 1. an organizational assessment, 2. a competency mapping process covering the effected positions, 3. leadership training for utility managers 4. a comprehensive and individualized leadership development process and 5. succession plan development and implementation consultation. The development of a sound leadership development and succession planning process is a utility or public works organization s straighest path across the bridge to the future and, in fact, 2383

2 taking this approach is quite possibly an organization s management s best tool in ensuring longterm measurable success for the organization, its customers, and its employees. KEYWORDS Leadership development, plan implementation, succession planning, results-based leadership, organizational change INTRODUCTION Statistics abound as to the impact that aging baby-boomers are starting to have on the workforce. To cite a few, Business 2.0 magazine projects a shortage of 5.3 million skilled workers by 2010 and bringing this closer to home American City & County magazine recently cited a study that identified the average age of public works directors to be 50. The workforce crisis is no longer looming; it is here. In this environment, it is fair to ask, are you prepared? At TAP Resource Development Group we have worked on this problem with a number of our clients, many of whom have taken a proactive stance in managing today s changing workplace. Quite simply, these leaders understand that in order to continue to meet or exceed the regulatory, customer, financial, operational, and customer goals of their utility or public works agency, they need to have organizational continuity. However, continuity is not always easy with today s aging baby-boomers. The key to attaining this organizational continuity is having a sound leadership development and succession process in place and an effective performance management system to insure implementation. What is leadership in today s world, how do we develop it, and what does it take to make a difference? John Kotter in his book, Leading Change, states that leadership...defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles. Dr. William Schneider, author of The Reengineering Alternative, defines leadership as Creating a vision and direction for the organization and mobilizing people to accomplish them. Dr. Schneider also indicates that to effectively develop leadership within the organization it is important to understand the organization at its core. Comprehensive leadership development and succession planning involves aligning leadership with the organization for which the leader is responsible. For that reason, we recommend a four step process for effective succession planning: 1. an organizational assessment, 2. a competency mapping process covering the effected positions, 3. a comprehensive and individualized leadership development process and 4. succession plan development and implementation. ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENT It s important for managers to understand the organization and context within which they lead. For this reason, an organizational assessment is an important part of effective leadership 2384

3 development and critical to succession planning. This includes an in-depth understanding of how the organization provides value to its customers, the organization s culture (how things get accomplished or implemented), and how leadership functions within the organization. The Organizational Assessment process also looks at how supportive (aligned) culture and leadership as a whole are with how the organization provides value to its customers. It will accomplish the following: Involve the entire organization in understanding the organization and its current situation. Enable the leadership team to get below symptoms and identify core issues. Identify strengths and barriers to successful implementation of a leadership development plan. Assess clarity of Strategic Focus throughout the organization. Through the assessment process, the leadership team will gain an understanding of the organization s focus, culture, leadership, the alignment of culture and leadership with purpose and the level of integration among elements of culture and leadership. CORE COMPETENCY MAPPING Comprehensive leadership succession planning requires a clear understanding of the components of effective leadership for the various management positions within the organization. A wellconstructed competency map can be very helpful to the members of your organization in providing direction and focus to their development efforts. Mapping leadership attribute sets to an organization s competencies helps the organization to identify and understand the specific leadership behaviors that each competency requires. It then allows the oragnization to assess and develop its leadership talent using a set of development tools. The process of competency mapping involves the following: Gain a thorough understanding of each competency. Get as much information as you can about each competency, including a detailed description of it, the rationale behind choosing it, and the expected outcomes of developing it. Identify specific examples of observable behavior that would or would not occur if people were demonstrating the competency. Given your competency map and the leadership attribute sets, determine the attributes that would be most involved in developing and demonstrating each competency set. It s important to keep the list of leadership attributes for each compentency set as short as possible, including only the sets that would be the key behavioral components of the competency. LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT Due to the very nature of leadership, effective development is an individualized training process that consists of the following activities. Leader Assessment. TAP Resource uses a 360 o assessment system that provides comprehensive information to individual managers and supervisors about their leadership attributes. By combining this information with the culture and strategy data already obtained 2385

4 from the Organizational Assessment, we establish the foundation for the creation of individualized leadership development plans. The 360 o leadership evaluation process is a non-judgmental assessment process involving individual managers, peers, direct reports, and supervisors. Leadership & Succession Training. A two-day leadership training workshop is provided that covers the basics of leadership in different types of organizations. This is a key piece of succession planning in that this will enable all of the organization s managers and supervisors to be working from a common knowledge and methodology base, ensuring continuity into the future as retirements and other staff turnover occur. The program will cover the following topics: Leadership fundamentals for utilities The four core leadership types Alignment of leadership and strategy Review the integration of leadership and performance management Beginning development of individual leadership development plans Individual LEA Feedback and Unit Development Needs Sessions. A facilitated meeting is held with each and their supervisor to review the information obtained from that individual s leadership assessment. The meeting will cover both the leadership attributes of the individual and the implications of leadership within the culture and strategic purpose of both the leader's organization and the larger organization. Team LEA Feedback Sessions. The Leadership Team will be given team behavior feedback and areas for development will be identified. This will include recommendations for improving team functioning and overall leadership alignment. Develop Individual Leadership Development Plans. Each leader participating in the leadership development planning process will design a preliminary plan for his or her individual development. Once the leader and the leader s supervisor have agreed on the preliminary plan, consultants will assist leaders to integrate development needs of their unit. SUCCESSION PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION A comprehensive succession plan should be created for both the larger organization and for each division within that organization; this will ensure alighment of leadership throughout the organization. The development of a sound leadership development and succession planning process is a utility or public works organization s straighest path across the bridge to the future and, in fact, taking this approach is quite possibly an organization s management s best tool in ensuring longterm measurable success for the organization, its customers, and its employees. ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT Many organizations set goals, but the process is usually based on key results areas associated with traditional measures of organizational success. For example, for-profit organizations, from Microsoft to Wal-Mart, often focus mostly on financial metrics such as net after-tax profits, return-on-capital, return-on-equity, etc. This focus usually leaves out key results in other areas such as the Employee, Customer and Organization. On the other hand, governmental 2386

5 organizations, such as utilities, usually focus on customer metrics such as water quality goals, water quality violations, reliability, etc. Even goals created to meet regulatory requirements are actually customer goals. While meeting or exceeding customer expectations is important, it is very difficult to sustain themselves as an effective organization in the long term without high levels of employee commitment and skill. This doesn t mean that the organization s efforts are equally distributed between each of the key results areas. One area may get more attention than another may, but the effective leader must insure that none of the key results areas are neglected There must also be a tracking and monitoring system that truly tracks organizational, unit and multi-unit goal accomplishment and communicates information to everyone about how the unit and larger organization is doing. Goal accomplishment must be monitored on at least a monthly basis and everyone in the organization must have access to information on the organization s goals and their progress toward goal attainment. This is a clear opportunity for automation. However the Internal Focus KEY RESULTS AREAS Process-Centric Organization Employee Financial Customer People-Centric External Focus level of sophistication can very from a packaged system like Microsoft Outlook to an Intranet web page to a full-blown Management Information System. The key is making the OPMS truly part of the organization, part of its day to day operation, part of its systems. Figure 1 ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM Strategic Purpose Key Results Areas Metrics Communicate Results & Celebrate Tracking & Monitoring Goals Figure

6 SUMMARY Integrating Succession and performance a utility to align its management processes and focus the entire organization on implementing long-term strategy. It links various components of the organization s management system in a way that each time a change is made it adds to the organization s momentum in moving toward the accomplishment of its strategy. For a utility, an OPMS provides the centerpiece, the central management system, for how it operates on a day in and day out basis. It aligns action with vision. An Organizational Performance Management System also creates an environment where change, such as succession planning, can be created and implemented in a positive way. It is designed to get the organization on the winning track, foster momentum, and celebrate wins all along the way. REFERENCES William E. Schneider, The Reengineering Alternative: A Plan for Making Your Current Culture Work. Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin Professional Publishing, Inc Michael Treacy, & Fred Wiersema, Discipline of Market Leaders. Reading, MA: Addison- Wesley Publishing Co Dave Ulrich, Jack Zenger, & Norm Smallwood, Results-Based Leadership. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press