Tag Archive for: Leadership Development

Employer of Choice – Building Leadership and Succession into Your Business

Business Success: The Human Factor (Part 5 of 6)

If you missed the introduction to this people management series, how about starting with: ‘Become an Employer of Choice’.

Our Employer of Choice series starts with a look at the various human resource management issues consistently found in the SME sector that worry business owners, and then covers Effective Staff Selection, Induction, Performance Management, and Employee Exit Procedures.

Subsequent articles discuss Effective Communication, Meetings, and Goal Setting and Feedback; then Rewards and Recognition; and Selling the Value to Employees.

Staff Engagement = Motivation = Performance = Productivity = Profitability

Building Leadership and Succession into Your Business

Knowledge, Skills and Attribute Development – Set your people up for success

Stage 1 – Build success in your team in their current roles

  • Understand and establish role criteria – What defines success for each role in your business?
  • Knowledge – What are the knowledge requirements for each role within your organisation?
  • Skills – What are the skill requirements for each role within your organisation?
  • Attributes – What are the key attributes, qualities or values required for each role within your organisation?

Define and document each role in the organisation clearly and thoroughly to provide a blueprint for success.

  • Assess your team against their roles – How well do they meet the criteria for their respective roles in your organisation?

Assessments often reveal human weaknesses in your organisation which may require difficult decisions to be made. For example, there may be a need for an organisational restructure.

  • Take ACTION
Human Resource Case Study: Assessment of suitability of employees for their role

For an SME that Gibsons Business Consulting recently provided human resource management consulting services, using the above process it was found that 14 out of 26 key people employed in the business were deemed not suitable for their roles.

The result:

  • Some staff moved on,
  • Some staff changed roles, and
  • Some staff stepped up and met their role criteria.

The bottom line is that all of the employees of this business now meet the criteria set for their role, and business performance has improved measurably as a result.

For those employees who stepped up with the aim to meeting their role criteria, the following human resources management approach was undertaken:

  • Train staff where their knowledge or skills do not meet the criteria for their role.
  • Mentor staff where their attributes are inconsistent with the criteria for the role.
  • Revise or change role definition while the development process takes place to allow time for staff to transition effectively into their new role.
  • Regularly review staff against the criteria set for their role and provide feedback supported by action and support.

The above human resources management approach should be followed for every role in your organisation to ensure every member of your team meets her or his role criteria. This is the blueprint for individual, team and ultimately, business success.

Stage 2 – Build succession in your team in their future roles – become a learning organisation

These assessments become the blueprints for future leaders. Rising stars become obvious through this process as does their development into their next career move. Actions can be taken well in advance to train and mentor people into their next career move before it happens. Intentional leadership development and succession planning as part of your human resource management and business planning sets the business and staff up for ongoing future success and development.

Your employees will thank you for it and you will not only build a strong team, you will create the basis for true succession in your business by developing your future leaders in a dynamic and pro-active way.

Sound simple? Yet in the current business environment where sourcing and retaining the right people is so difficult, managers and supervisors all too often don’t apply these basic human resource management principles.

It is never too late to act.

You’ll be amazed at the results if you do apply these basic principles. And if you need a hand with any people management issues or human resource management initiatives, talk to an experienced business consultant.

The next blog and final blog in this series is ‘Employer of Choice – Becoming a Learning Organisation‘.

The Value of Mentoring

How do you know you are doing well in your role? How do you know you are leading and managing your business in the best possible way to achieve your goals? Who do you turn to when you are having trouble making a decision or don’t know how to solve a problem?

If major problems arise in your business that you cannot address on your own, or you wish to take your business in a new direction and need a hand then consider seeking out the management expertise of business consultant. But what about the day-to-day issues of leading and managing, who do you turn to?

For many managers, and especially the business owners, the answer is normally no one. You forge ahead doing the best you can with the information, experience and know how you have. Again, we go back to those questions above. How do you know you’ve made the right decision for the best result?

Investing in the development of your employees and yourself is beneficial for both the individual and the organisation. One of the simplest methods to provide employee development is through the concept of mentoring. Mentoring can be both formal and informal and is often a learning exercise for both the mentor and mentee.

Investing in the development of your employees and yourself is beneficial for both the individual and the organisation.

Could mentoring have a place in the human resource management of your business?

The process of mentoring usually involves a more experienced person discussing issues and circumstances with a less experienced person to help them find techniques and practices to address their problems and opportunities. The caveat is that the mentor does not ‘tell’ the mentee what they should do. Instead, the mentor asks the mentee the right questions to enable them to find the answers or remedies themselves to successfully address the problems they may be facing, thus increasing knowledge and confidence.

In essence, a successful mentoring relationship is based upon trust and the understanding that the mentor will support the mentee whilst also challenging the mentee to learn and grow. The mentor shares with the mentee their experiences and know how for the purpose of this growth.

Now, if you don’t have a mentor, is it time for you to find one?