That doesn’t surprise Jerry Cukier,
managing partner of Chartered
Professional Accounting firm Crowe
Soberman LLP. He specializes in assisting
clients with leadership transition
planning. It’s a process that needs to be
tackled head on, rather than avoided.
“This is not done over a week, a month
or even over a year – it’s actually done
over several years,” he said. “It takes a lot
of thinking and honest self-examination.
Most people look at succession when
someone dies or there is an emergency,
but it’s an issue that needs to be dealt
with much sooner rather than later.”
HR professionals play a key role in
helping management develop a successful
exit strategy while ensuring the continued
success of their business. In fact, says
Cukier, HR’s role in succession planning
starts from the day an employee is hired.
“You have to look at them to see if
that person could be a leader,” he said.
“Assessing someone early on is very
important. Leadership comes in many
different forms, but everyone who is
hired must be evaluated for their leadership
potential.”
Since HR builds company policies
from hiring to retiring, the department
must work closely with management to
clarify the succession vision, and to ensure
a plan is in place to meet those
objectives. In the case of a family-owned
business, the next step is tricky because
it involves an honest assessment of each
family member’s skills.
“In a family business, there is an overlay
of emotions,” said Susan Hodkinson,
Crowe Soberman’s chief operating officer.
“It’s a difficult position for entrepreneurs
to be in. They need to think about what
the future of the business looks like, and
also about staff competencies and how
they have evolved. Are their children really
ready to take over?”
She added that it can often be hard to
keep the next generation engaged while
they await their turn at the helm.
“That is very challenging, particularly
if it’s a family member who has been involved
for a very long time,” she said. One
of the factors complicating this situation
is Ontario’s removal of the mandatory retirement
age.
“We’ve always had a runway with age
65,” she said. “Now, this interrupts the
natural flow of promotion, and we don’t
have the predicted turnover any more.
How do you deal with someone in their
40s who is ready to step up, but there is
someone else who is showing no signs of
retirement?”
MANAGING THE TRANSITION
HR professionals need to be “at the table”
when it comes to succession planning.
“HR needs to remind leaders that they
need to be thinking several moves ahead
in the chess game that is leadership transition,”
said Hodkinson. “Succession
takes time. You can’t always find someone
who is ready to take over a business. You
must invest in having those successors in
place before you need them.”
Human resources can help outgoing
leaders establish a timeframe for the succession,
and work to define a plan for
knowledge transfer. Often, this involves
strategy
42 ❚ FEBRUARY 2015 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL