Editorial: Succession planning - new challenges for the new generation

Editorial by Alberto Gabbai
Chairman of the Board of Cezanne Software

The phrase "Succession and Career Management" has a nice flow to it, not only because it sounds familiar, but also because it manages to convey, in three words, a key concept seen from two different points of view: the employee’s (Career) and the company’s (Succession).

Or, to put it differently: you have to be able to retain your employees, by providing them with a career within the organisation, if you want to have the “material” for a winning succession plan.
Neither succession nor career are easy to plan for, and it is becoming more and more complicated because the pace of change has increased: when we plan someone’s succession today, we really don’t know if that job is still going to be there tomorrow, how different it will be and which set of skills and competencies it will require. Likewise, when we map out career plans for employees, how can we be sure that we will be able to fulfil them?

Adding to this complexity is the generation shift in the workforce. The baby boomers, as the Americans call the post-war generation of people born between 1946 and 1964, are retiring. Nothing new here, they started to retire some time ago. However, they will continue to be a fundamental component of our workforce for many more years.

Today, and for a long time in the future, we will need to manage a combination of baby boomers, of generation X-ers (born between 1965 and 1980) and also increasingly of generation Y-ers (born after 1980). Although these terms were coined to indicate groups of people in the US and Canada, I think they can be applied, with slight variations, to all Western populations.

Some behavioural patterns for the younger groups make them quite unlike the previous generation and means they can be quite different to manage than baby boomers:

1. A generation X-er, and even more a Y-er, will probably change employer at least five times in his/her life: no company loyalty here, only the quest for what is best, and this is not necessarily more money.
2. They value learning: they are going to ask for more training, more information, more technology; even more travelling, which is seen as a source of learning, and they are prepared to quit their jobs or take a sabbatical, in order to pursue this objective.
3. They are outspoken and do not recognize authority in the same way as Baby Boomers did.
4. They are looking for a more balanced life, where the professional and personal parts coexist in better harmony: they want enough time off to go skiing, or gardening, or whatever they are interested in doing with their free time.

It is an evolving picture, which requires new and changing management skills. Since all of the generations are going to play a role in the “career and succession” strategy of your organisation, you will have to cope with different views of careers and different sets of expectations.

Studies on this subject show that management involvement is crucial; that communication is key; and that understanding everyone’s motivation is essential for success.

As always, the challenge falls on the HR professionals. Cezanne is ready to help with expertise and tools.