Again, we’ve turned to BLR’s newly-published Top 10 Best Practices in HR Management for 2012 for guidance.
Identifying Key Positions and Skills
A critical step in the process is to specifically identify the key positions that will be targeted in the succession plan. This usually includes management-level positions. It may also include highly specialized jobs that are essential to the company’s ability to meet current or future goals.
Once the positions are identified, clarify what knowledge, experience, training and education, skills, personality traits, and other requirements are for these positions. Then, look at current employees and identify individuals with the potential to fill these key positions. Identify gaps in the skills and experience of current employees and then make a concerted effort to fill those gaps when hiring employees from outside the company.
Want to develop leadership skills in your current employees so you can promote from within? Try the Leadership for Employees Library of BLR’s TrainingToday. Try it now.
Identifying High-Potential Employees
Also critical to the succession plan is the process of identifying employees that will be targeted for training and mentoring so that they will be ready to step into key positions when openings occur. It is helpful to consider these criteria:
- Work history, including progression into more responsible positions, and past experience that might be helpful in a future position
- Job performance over time
- Education and training
- Demonstrated willingness to take initiative on new projects and to suggest new ideas
- Employee’s own interests and career goals
- Personality profile if the company uses this type of assessment
- Ability to get work done and to meet deadlines
- Ability to work as part of team and to motivate others
- Understanding of the company’s products and customers
- Training needs of the employee in order to be ready for more responsible management positions
Once an employee is identified through this process, the next step is to develop an individualized plan for the employee. The best development plans include a mentor relationship with a successful senior manager, cross-training, and project work that provides leadership opportunities for the employee. Even though some classroom training may be appropriate, managers generally learn more relevant skills through observation and practice.
How can you go about training your employees to be leaders? It’s never easy to find the time or the money, but leadership training has a tremendous ROI value for employers.
The Leadership Library provides you with a sensible (and economic) solution.
The Leadership Library for Employees allows you to:
- Train on demand. Employees can complete training anytime from anywhere. All they need is a computer and an internet connection.
- Reinforce training topics with engaging graphics and quizzes to test their knowledge.
- Monitor and track the results of your training program with the built-in recordkeeping tool.
- Save costs. The more you train, the more cost-effective the training becomes.
The Leadership for Employees Library is a Web-based training tool that can be utilized by any organization. All you need is a computer and Internet access, and the library is open 24/7.
Have you noticed that some of your employees have the potential to be effective leaders? Get them the training they need with BLR’s TrainingToday Leadership for Employees Library. Get the details here.
The Leadership for Employees Library provides tools and information to employees in a leadership position, or aspiring leaders, to improve their business, leadership, and professional skills.
The courses cover a range of leadership and managerial topics, including the following:
- Email Best Practices For Employees Training
- Business Writing Skills Training for Employees
- Conflict Resolution for Employees
- Crash Course in Leadership Skills
- Effective Communication for Employees Training
- Employee Ethics Training
- Negotiating Skills for All Employees
- Organizing and Planning for Success: What Employees Need to Know
- Workplace Problem Solving Training for Employees
- Workplace Stress Management Training – Wellness Training
- Team Building Training for Employees – Workplace Team Building
- Training the Trainer: Effective Techniques for Dynamic Training
This turnkey service requires no setup, no course development time, no software installation, and no new hardware. Your employees can self-register, and training can be taken anytime (24/7), anywhere there is a PC and an Internet connection. Courses take only about 30 minutes to complete.
Training Today automatically documents training. As trainees sign on, their identifications are automatically registered. When the program is completed, the trainee’s score is entered. So, when you want to see who has been trained on any subject, or look at the across-the-board activity of any one employee, it’s all there, instantly available.
Course certificates can be automatically generated from within the training center and are automatically retained for recordkeeping purposes.
Get started today on helping your employees be the best they can be!