Thank you again to our fabulous panel:
Ryan McShane, Personnel Officer, Baltimore County Department of Aging
Lauren Semper Scott, Career Development Team Leader, Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA)
Stan Jones, Manager, Training & Development, (WMATA)
Joe Niegoski, Director of Educational Services, American Public Transportation Association
Daphne Snowden, Director of Operations for Continuing Education, Baltimore City Community College
They shared their varied experiences with Succession Planning in their organizations and provided a number of valuable resources for us all (see below). It was agreed that the so called "Brain Drain" is happening across the board in organizations - here's what you can do.
Summary of the "Aha's" of the day:
- To get Succession Planning going in your organization, address both employees and senior management
- Get their attention with the facts
- Succession Planning begins with effective recruitment
- Identify people who are willing and able to work
- Take control of your own Career Development
- Emphasize individual development:
- Who are you now?
- Where are you now?
- Where do you want to be in the future?
- Demonstrate that there is a model for Succession Planning that works
- Understand and document the competencies of the leaders in the organization
- Emphasize Knowledge Management: define the Who, What, Where, When and Why of each job
- Capture as much information as possible from employees who are leaving
- Support Cross Training (Shadowing, Job Rotation) to lessen the impact of the employee who leaves
Resources:
Stan Jones recommends:
Center for Creative Leadership - their annual conference on Succession Planning is considered one of the most informative
Roberta Barnes offered two wonderful resources on Knowledge Management:
Prof. William W. Agresti, Ph.D.
Graduate Division of Business and Management Johns Hopkins University
9601 Medical Center Drive
Rockville, MD 20850-3332
agresti@jhu.edu
Bill talked about Data Mining as it relates to Knowledge Management at Aspen Systems.
Dr. Jay Liebowitz, Professor
Dept. of Information Technology
School of Professional Studies in Business and Education Johns Hopkins University
9601 Medical Center Drive
Rockville, Maryland 20850-3332
jliebow1@jhu.edu
Jay talked about Knowledge Management and is the author of "Addressing the Human Capital Crisis in the Federal Government: A Knowledge Management Perspective" (Butterworth-Heinemann/Elsevier, 2004).
Joe Niegoski shared with us the "Personal Development Plan - Proposed Core Competencies from the 2007 class of Leadership APTA.
"45% work where there are no formal processes to capture what employees have learned before they retire or leave." Baltimore Sun
Ryan McShane provided us with copies of comprehensive exit interviews (attached and on our web site). "One is a simple exit interview which elicits comments regarding an employee's work experience and why they have chosen to leave the Agency.
The other (provided to long term employees of 10 years or more, who may be retiring or moving on to another opportunity) asks the interviewee to reflect on their work experience so that they may impart some of the institutional knowledge they have gained throughout their years with the Agency." Thank you, Ryan!
Talk of Succession Planning makes us realize that much of the Baby Boomer generation is retiring and more and more Gen X'ers, Y'ers and the Millenium group are taking their place in the workforce. How are we all coping with that? I know at times I feel like I'm working with my kids! Join us at our next TEAM Meeting (May/June timeframe) when we will discuss Generational Differences in the Workplace - info will be posted soon on our website: www.insitetraining.com
