It's not just your workforce retiring; it's an entire skillset. So where are your next leaders going to come from?
This month we have been focussed on people issues. Talking with service teams up and down the country one 'people issue' has repeatedly been voiced with more volume than others.
We Have a Generational Issue
That is, when this generation finally stop clocking up the miles and permanently take up fishing, managers are floundering to find the next generation of keen engineers to replace them.
Replacing the sheer number of engineers is an issue this article won't be big enough to deal with. Instead we will focus on that lynchpin of the service team: the Service Manager.
Next in Line for Promotion“As experienced staff continue to edge towards retirement, the seniors within your team will be most likely the first to get there,” says Brian Gibbons, motivational management trainer at Focus Motivation Ltd. “In that case how do you go about promoting from within the service team to find your new service manager?”
Retirement (especially within the context of a habitually aging workforce) means a skills drop. While you might be able to make do with a few plodders in your ranks, this certainly isn't the case when it comes to your leadership team.
You need to have, short term, that contingency in place for maintaining management excellence. Only then can you guarantee having the team in place to resolve the longer term issues (from where your next generation of mobile workers will come, for instance).
Without this added pressure of reduced head count, service teams are generally stretched enough, before starting to consider the future management team.
“It doesn't make any sense not to devote time and effort into developing staff and looking for future leaders,” says Gibbons. “The average service manager is under huge pressures to hit targets, on time and on budget and is stuck in a Catch 22 situation - too busy to step off the treadmill and work on the business instead of in the business. Not enough time to delegate and develop their staff and as a consequence spends too much time fire fighting and spinning their wheels.
“The first few questions I ask managers on my training programmes is 'do you have a right hand man/woman?' and 'How much time do you devote to succession planning?'. These are areas that many people neglect until it is too late, and yet they should be uppermost in all managers' minds.”
Where to Find Your Next Managers
Losing out to RetirementThe focus needs to be on making sure that while retirements take their toll on your service setup, you have the structure in place to cope with the associated difficulties. We need to think of it in the way that Governments are constructed; you have your leader, but you also have a break down of the team ready to slot into any contingency plans. The bigger the team, the bigger the trail of potential leaders.
But will you find that next set of managers?
To answer this question, I must defer to Mr Gibbons:
“There is no magic bullet. You have to take time out in the short term to train and be trained. I know some people might regard this as harsh doctrine, but there is no alternative. After the debacle of this year`s Rugby World Cup, England`s dire performance can only be improved by blooding some new, inexperienced players and in doing so they will undoubtedly lose a few games as the team rebuilds. That`s the trade off for bringing on new talent as the old guard retires. There is always a price to be paid in developing your successors, but it`s a much smaller price than being too busy to do it and then finding you have no one in place when you need them.”
And what kind of training is needed in that role?
“The best type of training and development is a combination of on the job coaching and mentoring by the line managers and more formal, structured management training. Wherever possible, I always recommend off site training where the delegate is exposed to other ideas rather than just toeing the party line. While I agree it is important to maintain the corporate culture (providing the culture is a positive one!), there is often a danger of becoming too insular and getting stuck in the 'that`s the way we do it round here' mentality.”
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