I am thankful and privilege to be invited as the guest speaker this morning
for the 2nd general assembly of Bulacan Cooperative leaders consisting of 24
Bulacan Cooperatives (with 4 districts) plus a Bulacan-based federation.
It's always a learning experience and I really find it satisfying when I get to
help them by sharing my understanding and skills gained in human resource
management.
This morning, the topic was on "succession planning as key to effective
leadership transition". Since majority of the participants are
cooperative managers and board members, I felt their strong concern on the
continuity of their cooperatives, and they are eager to understand how they
should identify their successors as I saw them jot down notes on their
papers.
Here are some questions I received during the discussion include the
following (with corresponding answers):
Question 1: We are relatively a small cooperative (about 20+
employees). Is it still okay to assign the employees to different
functions so as to test where they are really fitted?
Answer 1: While you are small, it is understandable that your staff
would do multi-tasking. The processes are still uncomplicated specially
if you still have limited offerings to your members. Also, the number of
transactions per day may not be too bulky so it would still be easy for your
staff to be on the job training as they do their new functions. Also, relatively
small organizations usually have staff with the same level of expertise
or staffs are selected based on relatively same qualifications or
criteria. Discrepancies or gaps on skills are not that far. Thus,
it would still be okay to do this strategy to find the right fit for your
employees. The start-up staff or your current staff will then have the
opportunities to fully understand the operations, and they can become managers
when time comes for the cooperative to expand. But in the process, just
be sure that you still maintain some control procedures in the functions that
they handle. Processes should be documented through manuals and policies
should be reviewed and in-place as ready references as the coops grow.
Question 2: At this point, when we get back to our coops, can we start
with the succession planning?
Answer 2: Yes, but place the initial steps in place. As we have
discussed earlier, the board and the management (CEO/GM), with the assistance
of the HR, are accountable in the implementation of the succession
program. The owners of this are the board members and the managers.
HR provides the nitty-gritty or implementation of the succession planning
activities. To start with, what you can do is review and updates your organizational
structure. Identify the key positions and review the job descriptions and
qualifications (competencies, soft skills and other criteria) for these key
positions. Then look into the profile of your existing employees.
In their current position, see if the employees have gaps then prepare a
training plan that would improve their competencies and be at par with your
requirements. Interview or ask your employees what their career direction
within the cooperative. Check for future personal plans of employees that
are outside the cooperative. This way, you can determine whom you should
invest much on employees’ development.
There are other questions raised during the question and answer portion or
after the presentation. However, I noticed that some cooperatives still
lacks in the profiling of their employees. I suggest that those who
doesn't have a software or soft copy of employees data, they should start
preparing it using the excel format. Per excel sheet can be represented
by an employee. Using the records or 201 file, they can immediately
extract information. Then this data should regularly be updated.
What should be its content? The following are some data you can include
in that excel format:
1. Name of Employee
2. Date Hired
3. Department
4. Entry Position
5. Current Position
6. Entry Salary
7. Current Salary
8. Age
9. Gender
10. Civil Status
11. No. of Children (if any)
12. SSS No./TIN No./PhilHealth No.
13. Contact Number
14. Address
15. Educational Attainment
16. Trainings Attended
17. Skills and Competencies
18. Desired position
19. Certifications
20. Performance Appraisal
You can add up other data, but from the above information analyze and
identify the skill gap between the current post and the qualification/criteria
for the occupied post. Also, identify the gap between the desired career
path/position then develop a program that would address that gap.
A lot of this should be in place like the organizational structure, job
descriptions, performance measures and key result areas but as for now, I
highly recommend for your HR to do the 1st few steps mentioned above.
I hope this blog was able to help and share our learning for today, August
19, 2014.
To God be the Glory!
