The wave of boomers retiring is reaching its full crest.

This is not news, of course, but their mass exodus from the workforce has created a problem that many have dubbed “The Great Retirement.” The solution, in part, is to identify the next generation of leaders to fill their shoes. In addition to closing the talent gap their absence creates, there are other reasons a healthcare organization needs a solid succession plan:

• Keeping pace with constantly changing healthcare industry technology and challenges
• Quickly filling new roles created by organizational growth, as we emerge from the pandemic
• Adapting to job realignments caused by mergers and acquisitions
• Heading-off future skills shortages
• Increasing employee engagement and productivity

Does your company’s succession plan address all these issues?  The truth is, many organizations are too busy managing the daily pressures to look that far down the road.  But to win the talent war, you need to start assessing, planning and developing leaders now.  Here are a few strategies to make your succession plan more effective:

Don’t let talent needs become talent crises

Remove some of the stress caused by finding the right person for a job by planning for future needs now.  Careful planning will minimize workforce disruption, increase knowledge transfer and increase employee engagement/loyalty by providing clear career paths.

Let your best employees know about your plans

Tell your key talent that your company has high expectations for them.  Prepare them and increase their buy-in by letting them know that you will be investing in their futures and will be facilitating moves to enhance their professional development.

Define criteria for potential

Logically, you want to develop employees with the greatest potential – but potential for what? Work together with key executives to map out the future requirements for success in key positions (i.e., what will tomorrow’s leaders have to be able to do to succeed in these roles? Check out this article).  Use these criteria as a measuring stick for evaluating each individual’s potential.

Assess current employees’ skills and competencies

Once success criteria have been defined, you must invest the time and money to objectively and validly assess what your internal talent can do.  While each hospitality organization must decide which tools best fit its individual needs, popular ones include assessments from the candidate’s departmental peers and supervisors; career achievement summaries to capture work experiences; psychometric tools; behavioral interviews to probe against established criteria for success (you can find examples of these on our Hiring Resources page).

Close the gap

Once you understand where current employees are and where they need to be, you can customize talent development plans to close the gap.  As potential leaders progress in their growth, keep them updated on hiring decisions.  Monitor their interest and involve them in the development process as much as possible, to keep them invested for the long term.  Most importantly, make sure their career aspirations are aligned with your succession plans, to keep you both working toward the same goal.

Ensure your organization’s continued success by acquiring tomorrow’s healthcare leaders today.  Contact Hospitality in Healthcare today to discuss your executive, administrative, and clinical healthcare recruiting needs today.