Numerous labour/employment trend experts have cautioned us about this situation and yet it appears that few if we’re taken the signs seriously.

Are we numbed by the experiences that we had in dealing with “Y2K”?

I hope not, but I fear that many of the folks driving strategy in our organizations are likely focused on their own personal retirement plans rather than shifting gears to the more important corporate priority of what we refer to as “succession planning”.

After all it may be something they really don’t want to face.  Granted this could be an over generalization in my opinion but given the limited number of identifiable proactive strategies across the municipal sector, this observer suspects that we’ve buried our heads in the sand on this one.

So with all of that corporate knowledge about to flow out of our organizations what if anything have we done about it?

Silence…. Truthfully, not much!

So perhaps too many people in those leadership roles are simply planning on turning in their security badge/employee card along with the smart phone and walking out the door with a limited amount of advance warning.

That would seem to me a failure of their fiduciary responsibility to the corporation that employs them as well as a fundamental lack of professionalism!  (Just my personal views so don’t shoot the messenger).

I recently spoke to a CAO who lost a 25-year employee in a Senior Director position give two weeks “retirement” notice, tacked on with vacation entitlement and before they could grasp it, that employee was already walking out the door.

Unfortunately, there was no one to immediately back-fill the role. All that institutional knowledge just up and gone, resulting in the disruption of critical business functions and supportive technologies with limited information about procedures and passwords etc…

As leaders what are we doing to ensure that we are prepared for the impending retirements? Are we truly serving the best interests of our organizations or is it a case of coasting on the contributory earnings of beefed-up pensions?

The municipal sector job ads across the province of Ontario over a one month period had 15+ CAO positions up for grabs, and those were just the postings. There’s also those who are currently off on a leave but the postings actually provide quite a range of municipal opportunity for candidates looking to take the next step in their careers.

In addition, the month prior there were another 9 senior municipal positions in search for viable candidates. It may not seem like a significant number but the ripple effect on those 24+ jobs will reverberate across the municipal sector for the better part of the next year as the domino effect will continue and as people move up the ladder in pursuit of their ideal job.

Again, that’s just the jobs that got advertised.

Exciting times ahead I’d say, for “recruiters” who will compete in acquiring the best candidate for the job but remember that finding the right “fit” for the organization with the right skills is even more important.

I recently spoke to a recruiter friend who told me that a newly appointed CAO had all the experience, knowledge and expertise in the world, but suggested the new hire may be somewhat short-lived given that the individual was unfortunately not the right “fit” for that particular municipality.

The fact is, if it doesn’t work out, these types of imprudent decisions are timely, costly and overall detrimental to the organization.

In the private sector, Boards of Directors have a clear understanding that their most important responsibility is the recruitment, evaluation, retention and compensation of their CEO.

And as much as we hear time and time again the we, at the municipal level should be running our municipalities with deft efficiency and effectiveness of the business world, why don’t the Council’s we elect behave more like the private sector Board’s and focus their attention on the issue of “succession planning” before the pressure is on them to embark upon a recruitment process?

Shouldn’t that be priority #1 for most new Councils?

In some communities the first action of many newly elected Council is the house- cleaning stage which appears to be a somewhat disruptive approach to initiating change and means “out with the old and in with the new”.

The first casualty is typically the current CAO and then from there it depends on how disruptive the new council wants to be.  Clearly that approach seems to be gaining in popularity and so newly elected Council’s ran on the platform of change.

I guess that’s one way to tackle the issue but is it the most effective approach?

Some, and let me say more strategic minded Councils are taking a more “business oriented approach.”

They are proactively and in collaboration with their CAO working to ensure they have a succession planning strategy.

There are a number of elements to that strategy which we won’t address here but it is evident that the focus is on advancing the interests of the corporation rather than the political interests of disruptive change. It may come to the same eventual outcome based upon the tactics and strategy but in the immediate term, the “goodwill teamwork” between the Council and the CAO will likely build greater capacity to deal with the more challenging issues.

And surely Councils must recognize the importance of investing time, and the necessary training dollars to those from within who have the skills and/or leadership potential in order to eliminate costly stop-gap measures for senior level positions with municipal retirees.

It may be common sense to some, but how about holding your CAO who is about to retire, accountable to a “succession plan” before he or she walks out the door either on their own accord or otherwise.

And or… how about the notion of implementing a leadership development training plan or a coaching/mentoring program to support and ensure organizational success of your emerging leaders?

OMLI will be launching our succession planning workshop in the very near future and we’re pleased that the two individuals who will deliver the workshop have extensive experience in leading succession planning and change management initiatives.