Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM JANUARY 2016 96 T he dawn of a new year gives many of us reason to reexamine our lives and businesses. New Year's resolutions regularly include promises to lose weight, quit smoking, exercise more and make other lifestyle choices. A new year also tends to have us looking at our business situations, and we often need to confront a subject that many of us would rather avoid–if I am not here or unable to run my business, who would do it? Don't sleep on that thought. While it may be unpleasant, it is a valid concern. It will undoubtedly affect your family, your employees and their families, your business suppliers and partners, and your customers. You have spent years building up the name of your business, and you are going to want that good name to continue. Succession planning is a process whereby an organization ensures that employees are recruited and developed to fill each key role within the company. Through your succession planning process, you recruit superior employees, develop their knowledge, skills, and abilities, and prepare them for advancement or promotion into ever more challenging roles. Actively pursuing succession planning ensures that employees are constantly developed to fill each needed role. As your organization expands, loses key employees, provides promotional opportunities, and increases sales, your succession planning guarantees that you have employees on hand ready and waiting to fill new roles. There is a perception that the only companies that need to apply a succession plan are large corporations, but that is not the case. Any company can benefit by such a plan, and your concerns over the future of your business can be eased by implementing such a plan. How do you start such a process? Research indicates that clear objectives are critical to establishing effective succession planning. These objectives tend to be core to many or most companies that have well-established practices: • Identify those with the potential to assume greater responsibility in the organization • Provide development opportunities to those that can move into key roles • Engage the employee base in supporting the development of high- potential leaders • Build a database that can be used to make better staffing decisions for key jobs By pursuing the development process, you will likely find other benefits include: • Improved employee commitment and retention • Meet the career development expectations of existing employees • Counter the increasing difficulty and costs of recruiting employees externally The process itself does not necessarily involve reinventing the wheel- you need to identify those employees that you believe either have the capability to develop into leadership positions and then begin to involve them in the day to day operations of your business- let them be part of decision making and give them special projects to test their abilities. Through the process, you need to be available and be able to monitor progress, or even lack of progress. After all, every decision you make isn't going to necessarily work out, and you may have employees surprise you by their ability to grow and execute your plans. At some point, as the employee(s) progress in what they are doing, have a talk with them and outline your vision and plans for the business. Let them become your sounding board for ideas and planning for meeting challenges you might face. You have made this business successful- don't be afraid to let them get a look at what has gotten you to this point. Eventually, while they are probably not going to be carbon copies of what you are, they will be in a better position to make sound decisions on issues that they will face as leaders. Most employees will appreciate what you are doing and embrace the challenge. This allows you to begin to farm out some of the duties that perhaps you have assumed you'd be doing as long as you were working. By focusing on the development of your key employees, you can develop a future plan, and be able to ease yourself into a smaller role, or even, hopefully, a long and happy retirement! Succession planning does not have to mean that time when you won't be around any longer, but a solid plan will ease your mind, aid in the development of your employees and strengthening of your business. At the end of the day, you will certainly rest better! S E R V I C E D E P A R T M E N T EASE YOUR MIND WITH SUCCESSION PLANNING Randy Carney Executive Director, PSA

• Cover