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Let’s say your company is doing well. Demand for your products and services is steady. Your employees are engaged, and routinely go the extra mile and morale is high.

Your business’ leadership is on the ball, all are healthy and have made it clear they intend to stay around until retirement, which is at least a decade or more.

All is rosy.

But is it?

What would happen if your CFO suddenly received a better offer? What if your VP of Marketing suddenly became disabled and had to leave work? Barring these types of disasters, are you truly prepared for the day when your terrific leadership team does retire? Do you have a “succession” plan in place?

Many experts believe the best place to find your company’s next generation of leaders is from within your rank and file — your next CEO probably already works for you. Are you making sure she knows it?

Here are some tips to help you groom your company’s next generation of leaders:

1) Begin at the beginning. That is, hire the right employees and then, once you’ve done so, offer them the opportunity for continual training and learning. Build up their skills and knowledge. Help them become more mature. Let your best performers know there’s a chance for them to become part of the top echelon in time and promote them as needed and deserved as time goes on.

2) You don’t necessarily have to identify specific people as your company’s next leaders: Jane as CFO, Bob should definitely become president, etc. But you should identify a “pool” of people from which you could pull for leadership slots as they become available — or even create top positions for true stars.

3) Finally, it’s still a good idea to bring in some new blood from outside the company. A good rule of thumb to use is, if the business is poorly managed or going downhill, it’s probably a good idea to hire its next CEO from outside. In fact, it’s a good idea to bring in new high-level talent every now and then. This helps keep the “we’ve always done it this way, so we’ll continue to do so” way of thinking from taking over when home-grown talent become the company’s leaders. Change is the only constant in life, so your company undoubtedly will encounter challenges never before seen, challenges that will require a new way of thinking.

Planning for the succession of your company’s leadership all too often gets placed at the bottom of the management team’s to do list. Yet it’s too critical to ignore; just wait until your CEO gives his two-month notice and you’ll know all to well what we mean.

Are you a New York City area employer looking to bring in some high-level talent into your organization? Winston Resources can help. We provide top-notch workers for temporary, temp-to-hire or direct-hire assignments. Contact us today!


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