Tag Archives: People Schematic

Part 3: How to Build Your Company’s Succession Plan–The Individual Employee Profile

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When considering a succession plan for your business, there are a number of steps you can take to ensure you have a solid, well thought out plan. In Part 1 and 2 of this series, we discussed the importance of Succession Planning and the 9-Block People Matrix and the Succession Planning Business Model. Today, we will tackle the last component of the Succession Planning Process: the Individual Employee Profile.

Individual employee profiles

A world-class succession planning process involves gathering employee data and information from 3 sources:

1) the company / Human Resources,
2) the incumbent employee’s supervisor assessment of the employee, and,
3) the incumbent employee’s self-assessment.

Typical information referred to and used in succession planning discussions include:

  • Employee Employment Data An employee picture (if available), name, title, date of hire, grade level, performance rating, 9-Block People Matrix data, etc. A current employee resume, if on file.
  • EEOC Data Employees’ EEO code, EEO Category, gender, military service, relevant disability acknowledgments, accommodations or restrictions, the company’s Affirmative Action Plan. Including EEOC information is a best practice to assure compliance with any Affirmative Action Plans or requirements even if your company does not provide products or services to the US government. Age should not be a factor in discussions unless an incumbent employee has notified the company of an impending retirement. All of this information is highly confidential, shouldn’t be distributed and is best managed by Human Resources professionals.
  • Educational Information Every degree (both graduate and undergraduate degrees) as well as degree type, major and any minors achieved. Year of graduation is not important unless the coursework shows a significant change and is relevant for the role being considered. For example, if an employee has an undergraduate degree in engineering and a graduate degree in human resources, that employee could / should be considered for positions in both the engineering and human resources functional areas of the business.
  • Professional Certifications All certifications that an employee has achieved should be captured. These could be technical certifications, like Microsoft Office Certification or a professional certification like a CPA.
  • Technical Training Technical / job related training or experience from either current or previous employers, should be included where available, especially if it relates to a position that the employee is being considered for outside his/her area of functional responsibility.
  • Leadership Training Any formal training received, from either internal or external sources in support of traditional leadership development skills.
  • Professional Experience Experience from both the employee’s current and previous jobs. Information should include company, position, location and any performance awards or highlights when available.
  • Company Positions and Salary History All positions and salary changes for the employee.

Once the profile has been completed, the employee should update or validate it for future organizational use.  Figure 1 is an example of an employee data profile prepared by the company and used for the succession planning process.

Figure 1. Sample employee profile for succession planning discussions

Manager’s assessment
The second source of data used in succession planning discussions is the employee’s manager’s assessment.
The assessment should be both quantitative and qualitative if possible. In Figure 2, the Core Competencies of the company are rated on a scale of 1 to 10. In addition, the supervisor needs to capture the employee’s top 3 strengths as well as the top 3 areas for development. These can be based on historical performance discussions and employee observations.

Figure 2. Manager’s assessment of employee

Employee self-assessment
The third, and final source of data is the employee’s self-assessment. This data comes in 3 forms. The first is validation of the information found in the employee profile; which includes educational experience, certifications, and any special training. The second piece of data is the Part 1 of the Employee’s Self-Assessment shown in Figure 3.
Note that in Part 1 of the Employee’s Self-Assessment the employee is asked to list his/her top 3 strengths in addition to the top 3 areas for development for comparison and validation by the manager.

Figure 3. Part 1 of the employee self-assessment

The Employee Self-Assessment also asks about the employee’s own career goals and timing expectations. Answers to these questions can provide insight into employee engagement levels and whether expectations are realistic or not.  The second part of the Employee’s Self-Assessment invites the employee to provide a list of volunteer activities and roles within those organizations. It also asks for the employee’s involvement in professional associations. See Figure 4.

Figure 4. Part 2 of employee self-assessment

Participation in activities outside the workplace may give insight into the employee’s areas of interest and motivation.  Involvement in external associations, especially in leadership capacities, is a way for the employee to gain additional leadership experience that the company could potentially benefit from.  Finally, while not necessarily required, an updated copy of the employee’s resume could be helpful in discussions.

Good human resources practice. When I managed a staff of exempt and non-exempt employees, I asked everyone to update their resumes annually. After the initial uncomfortableness, they realized that reviewing their resume was useful, especially around self-assessment time of the performance review cycle.

Like performance goals and performance reviews, the succession planning process should be completed yearly because some employees may have been promoted, some may have completed stretch assignments, and others will have retired or left the company.

Importance of confidentiality and bias neutral process
All discussions regarding succession planning need to remain confidential like any other company-sensitive materials.
Finally, it cannot be emphasized enough that all discussions regarding succession planning be facilitated by a bias-neutral individual in order to see alternate sides of situations or opportunities. It is for this reason that many companies engage the assistance of an outside facilitator to conduct and manage these discussion events.

If you have questions or need assistance with any of the 3 Succession Planning Processes; the 9-Block People Matrix, the use of the Succession Planning Business Model, or the Employee Profile, please contact me.

Randy Lumia is President of Paradise Workplace Solutions, LLC and works with business owners to improve productivity and profitable growth by aligning people strategies to the company’s business plan.

The People Plan: Tomorrow Comes Faster Than You Might Think

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You’re all set with the people you need in your business today.  You’re feeling good.  It may feel like a relief and time to take a break so you can focus on other issues.  But now is the time to think ahead and put together your People Plan.

If you’ve been following my posts on People Strategy, you identified in your people schematic that you will need 3 sales reps instead of 2, a higher-level technician to support customer service, or even a new office manager within the next year. Where are these people going to come from? How are you going to assure that you have the right person, for the right job, for the right reason tomorrow?

Following three best practices for a People Plan is your answer.  A Succession Plan, Individual Development Plans for your employees and a Recruiting Plan will have you in good shape when you’re ready to expand your employee base or have to unexpectedly replace a high performer.

Is someone in your business ready now?

The Succession Plan is a company/management driven process that looks at all current positions and employees for the importance and criticality of each position.  The team responsible for the plan discuss the vulnerability of the employee currently performing the role, possible internal candidates identified as back-fills for the position, and finally the need to consider external hiring for positions where a viable internal candidate has not been identified. The outcome of a succession plan is a document that the management team can revisit or pull out in case of an emergency loss.  It goes without saying that the succession plan should be reviewed at least yearly or when a major change has occurred.

Will you develop employees so they’re ready for a bigger role?

The Individual Development Plan is a manager supported and employee owned process for the acquisition of new skills that will both assist the business and enhance the employee’s self-worth and career progression. Individual development plans should drive an employee towards additional skills, knowledge and abilities required for a higher-level position in the business, thus feeding the succession planning pipeline.

There are many avenues for training and skill development to consider.

  • Traditional (technical) Skills Training, also known as On-The-Job Training, are skills usually shared by a co-worker that has, or still is, performing the task or skill that the employee is acquiring.
  • Professional Training typically is gained through external sources and is usually technically or functionally important; like application development for an IT professional, or advanced plumbing techniques for a trades position, or new accounting requirements under GAAP for a CPA. Many of these types of training come with CEU’s (Continuing Education Units) for the profession in which the employee is employed.
  • Formal Educational Training comes from the traditional secondary, 2 or 4 year college or a technical institute and focuses on specific educational required material necessary to be successful in the position.
  • Soft-Skills Training, including Leadership Development, are those traditional non-technical skills that, when acquired, should enhance the ability of the employee to do their job.
  • Professional Networking. While networking may seem out of place for Individual Development, it is most definitely a way for employees to develop their soft skills in a non-threatening environment that could also lead to additional business.

How are you going to fill the competency gap?

Finally, when you must look outside your company for the skills that you do not have internally, is the Recruiting Plan.

  • A company first needs to be able to Attract candidates for existing openings or for possible future openings.
  • Actively Recruit candidates through traditional recruiting methods, which include posting on the company’s website, paid websites such as Glassdoor, and the use of external recruiters or staffing agencies.
  • To Passively Recruit candidates engages future prospective employees you meet at networking or customers events. Attending and participating in Job Fairs is an excellent way to engage potential job candidates for both present and future company opportunities. Attending college job fairs is also an excellent way to secure interns or prospective future full-time employees.
  • The use of Social Media is no longer a nice-to-have, but a requirement to attract potential employees, recruit employees, and recruit passive candidates. The use of social media is also a necessary tactic to market the business, connect with existing and future customers, and to maintain a visible and active role in the on-line community.

I’ll be covering each section of the People Plan in more detail in future blogs.  Look for my next blog on Succession Planning and the 9-Block Matrix.

Contact me if you have any questions on the People Plan.

Paradise Workplace Solutions, LLC works with business owners to improve productivity and profitable growth by aligning people strategies to the company’s business plan.

What the heck is a “People Schematic”?

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Many business owners aren’t in a position to hire full-time human resource expertise and your business may not need it, yet.  But you do need a people strategy to be confident you’re evolving the structure of your business and hiring at the right time.  That’s why we’d like to share a concept that HR experts use with leaders to diagram business needs and milestones with future employee requirements–the People Schematic.

People schematic defined

The people schematic is the first part of a successful people strategy that also includes a People Plan and People Metrics.  Just like a successful people strategy, the schematic helps to assure that a business has the right people, in the right jobs, at the right time, for the right reasons. Also like the people strategy, a people schematic is a living, developing diagram that gets reviewed regularly alongside the people strategy and the company’s business plan.

The people schematic is one element of a broader strategic workforce planning process.

Components of a people schematic

The people schematic uses information from the business plan that includes

  • the current state (number and types of employees vs. the business plan)
  • the desired future state (number and types of employees vs. the business plan)
  • business markers that indicate when key actions need to be taken.

The schematic is the plan used to close the gap between the current and desired future state.  For those familiar with the traditional human resources lingo, this could be considered an extension or means to the development of a headcount or recruiting plan.

The people schematic is a graphed representation that shows the number and type of employees that will be needed over time against the business metrics that are used. The business metrics are different for each business. It could be the number of widgets necessary to be produced or the revenue needed to be generated. The metric could be the number of patients that need to be reached. It could be anything that the business deems to be its goal. However, two things are consistent regardless of the company’s product or service: the companies financials linked to the business plan, and the use of any and all metrics that measure key human resource information, such as turnover, time-to-hire, etc. The key point is that the schematic uses information derived from the business plan.

Drawbacks of not creating a people schematic

Is your business at risk if you don’t have a people strategy?  Maybe not…initially.  But it can catch up to you.

  • Under-hiring can lead to excessive workloads on current staff, missing customer deadlines, and the inability to react to business needs or changes.
  • Over-hiring can lead to financial stresses on the company, inefficiencies of the workforce, or put the organization in jeopardy that could result in layoffs or staff reductions.
  • Not having the right people ready for the position at the right time for the business.

“Just-in-time” hiring is not easy and takes diligence. Factors such as manager input, recruiting ‘lead-time’, employee turnover and ‘lost time or opportunity’ need to be considered.

Evolve your people schematic along with your business

Naturally, as the business advances or encounters difficulties, you need to modify the people schematic and business plan.  Actively review both documents regularly at the leadership level.  Also critical is that your managers understand both plans because they hold knowledge and experience of your business that is critical to implementing an accurate business plan.

Important to note:  Before determining your demand for external talent, identify gaps in skills and capabilities in your current workforce. Fill these gaps through internal mobility and ‘upskilling’ first. We’ll cover these topics as part of the People Plan in an upcoming blog.

Contact us if you have questions on a People Schematic.

Paradise Workplace Solutions, LLC works with business owners to improve productivity and profitable growth by aligning people strategies to the company’s business plan.