Succession Management
Succession management is playing an increasingly important role in many organisations.
Succession management should be a strategic, systematic approach which helps organisations to meet their future leadership challenges and ensures the capability to fill vacancies.
It is not a once a year planning program, but rather the active approach to managing and maintaining talented staff.
The shape of things to come for the NTPS
In 2004, OCPE released the workforce discussion paper The Shape of Things to Come - A Case for Succession Management in the NTPS. This article examines the emerging challenges for the Northern Territory Public Sector with respect to succession management.
One of the emerging challenges for organisations in recent years is ensuring they have adequate benchstrength to fill future leadership gaps in the organisation. These gaps are fuelled by potential shortfalls in labour market supply, differing generational values, shifts in community demographics, globalisation, the ageing workforce and moves to early retirement. There is uncertainty surrounding the long term impacts of an ageing workforce and the transformation of community values. There is however enough evidence to predict that these forces, coupled with the projected shifts in the demographics of the Northern Territory require urgent and critical attention.
This article analyses the current and future needs of the NTPS and examines its capacity to meet these challenges. It draws on contemporary authors, research papers and labour market statistics to examine the current demography in the NTPS and propose a way forward that is mindful of future influences.
The warning signs all point to the pressing need to develop an integrated and holistic approach to replacement planning that recognises differing cultural and generational perspectives. It becomes clear from the statistics and research available that the NTPS has vulnerabilities which it needs to be safeguarded against. A one size fits all approach will not deliver quality, sustainable outcomes. The central challenges to the NTPS in ensuring adequate leadership capacity are not just about planning for succession, but encompass a range of workforce development priorities that address the multitude of inter-connected disciplines and competing priorities.
It is of course impossible to predict the future, so without the luxury of a crystal ball the key to success will be in the strategic planning and deliberate positioning of the NTPS as an employer of choice.