MENTOR - WHO'S NEXT IN LINE?

Grooming staff to take on senior positions is good for organisations, says Sally O'Reilly

Getting the right people into key posts is a continual struggle for councils. The UK's ageing workforce is predicted to increase the number of senior managers retiring over the next decade, and organisations will need to identify successors for these roles. With over 30% of the local government workforce aged over 50, this won't get any easier.

Another issue is the trend towards flatter organisational structures, with fewer levels in the management hierarchy. This means staff are less likely to gain the broad strategic skills needed for senior positions - and the competition for candidates with such skills will remain fierce. The solution to this is 'succession planning', which the Improvement & Development Agency defines as "a process by which one or more successors are identified for key posts, and career moves and development activities are planned for these successors." In other words, succession planning is about preparing organisations for likely or inevitable changes, in order to minimise challenges later on. In a recent survey, the IDeA highlights succession planning as an area with room for improvement in local government. And it is working to foster best practice in the area as part of its Communities of Practice initiative. Helen Sinclair-Ross, an IDeA consultant on talent management says: "Succession planning is for people at all levels, not just senior managers. Social work, planning and environmental health are all areas where there are shortages of senior people."

This is not only an issue when staff move on, but also when services expand, she points out. "Councils have to take on additional staff to cope with the growth in population and resulting pressure on services."

For example, Swindon BC's social services department has had to expand rapidly because until recently this was one of the fastest growing areas in Western Europe." Dr Wendy Hirsh, an associate of the Institute of Employment Studies, has been working on a consortium project of four councils, set up by the IDeA, which is looking at innovative and practical ways of addressing the issue. The consortium includes Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire CCs and Tewkesbury and West Oxfordshire DCs. For Dr Hirsh, one of the key points about getting succession planning right is involving line managers from the beginning. "It is very helpful to have a direct link with line managers, rather than just having HR design the scheme and trying to sell this to managers at a later stage," she says.

Taking a strategic overview of where skills shortages might lie, and which posts will be hardest to fill is also essential. In the case of Gloucestershire, one priority was developing experienced clerical staff who had the potential to be finance managers - a very specific target area. But other authorities might decide to work to a much wider remit. "You might choose to focus on top-level jobs, or on particular shortage groups," says Dr Hirsh. "Or you can try and succession plan for every job in the authority. "Historically, people have succession planned for particular groups - very senior roles, for example. But now we are just as likely to be talking about pools or clusters of jobs, and the kind of people we want to see in them." No matter what roles staff are being groomed to fill, the priority then is to hone the necessary skills. Often, this means they should be given broader management experience and more challenging work outside their immediate field.

This is not an area in which councils have excelled, believes Dr Hirsh. "Councils have quite a good record on training, but are relatively weak on issues like workforce planning," she says. "There is a tendency to assume that someone else is growing the talent. "Also, there is a feeling in local government that succession planning is slightly elitist. The idea of someone being singled out worries people, and they are concerned about an equal opportunities backlash." However, the reverse is true. Ethnic minorities and other groups can benefit from good succession management policies.

The TUC and ACAS have clear guidelines on succession planning and support this approach, as long as it is fair and transparent. Following best practice guidelines is vital, says the IDeA's Ms Sinclair-Ross. "Complete transparency is essential, otherwise you run the risk of actually de-motivating staff, because they feel their own skills are being overlooked," she says.

Dos and don'ts
° Involve line managers in the initial stages of developing a succession management scheme
° Focus on which groups you should develop and what roles you need to fill
° Ensure all staff understand the programme and the reasoning behind it
° Expect line managers to support succession planning if you leave them out of the loop
° Assume you already know which posts need filling, and have the right people to fill them
° Be reluctant to inform the entire organisation about the programme for fear it could cause bad feeling