Succession
In the last two years, we have taken time to discuss a succession plan. This has led us to discussions amongst senior department managers and board members to discuss this in order to develop a plan for it. It’s no easy task to do, but mostly an exercise that most of us would gladly ignore if it wasn’t so important.
It’s the questions of the future that we ignore. Things like:
- When is the future? Is it 3 or 4 or 5 or 10 years?
- What will the future look like?
- What will be the rules, the requirements?
- What skills will we value?
- What will our income and expenses be?
- What will be the status of our economy?
Needless to say, the questions come faster than the answers!
But here’s what I can share with you:
We have written succession plans for each department and addressed key personnel retirement dates. This effort has forced us to focus on training for younger managers, rewrite job descriptions, and plan for this turnover. We also addressed emergency situations and written a plan to prepare for them.
Why? As professionals, we understand our role in operating a governmental agency on all occasions. Preparing for a future is more than a financial plan or an engineering plan for us. It is a personnel and staffing plan, too. And we feel we have a plan in place to address it.
Jerry Greiner
November 20, 2020