Editor’s Note: In the March issue of Spotlight, we discussed the seismic shift in generations taking place in Lehigh’s workforce. This month, we’re examining a critical part of successfully managing this transition: succession planning.
It Starts With A Lot Of Thinking
Sara Rodgers, Chief Information Security Officer from Library and Technology Services had been thinking about retiring for a while. Her husband was on the verge of retirement, and they were planning the next phase of their lives.
Sara discussed her retirement thoughts with Tim Foley, Director of LTS Client Services, and with Bruce Taggart, Vice Provost of Library and Technology Services, who is Sara’s direct supervisor. They knew they had to plan for the future and wanted Sara involved in how they moved forward in her absence.
Sara was more than willing. “When someone has been in a position for a while, when that person decides to leave, I think it’s a good time to ask if you’re doing things the best way,” Sara said. “And the person who leaves needs to understand that things may change when they leave.”
Tim and Sara had conversations about her position and how the office she managed, Information Security, Identity and Access Management was currently structured. They developed a plan that involved elevating a current employee’s role to become chief information security officer and then replacing Sara with someone who would oversee the identity and access management portion of her role.
“When we hired the person we were considering promoting as part of this plan, we saw real leadership skills in security that we thought were excellent,” Tim said. “We agreed he should be offered the opportunity to move up into that position.”
It was a succession plan that didn’t involve creating any additional positions. But it did require re-writing two existing position descriptions, offering the expanded and enhanced role to the current employee, and then hiring a new employee as well. Sara and Tim both felt it was the best approach to the situation. They were pleased to have a solid plan.
Still, something was holding Sara back from declaring her intention to retire officially, in writing.
“The problem, and Tim knows I struggled with this, is that once you put it in writing that you’re retiring, the policy states that if anything changes, you can’t undo it. It’s permanent,” Sara said. “So, that’s what leads a lot of people to say ‘well, why should I do that?’ Because you have to look out for your interests and your future, right? Things can happen in your personal life and with your financial situation that you don’t foresee.”
Without that official notice, Tim couldn’t take certain steps he needed to take. Sara was stressed out. She felt bad that Tim couldn’t move forward, but she was just not ready to put it in writing.
How HR Helped
While visiting Tim Hinkle in Human Resources to discuss the financial side of her plan to retire, Sara expressed her anxiety. He suggested she sit down with Linda Lefever, HR Associate for Employee Relations, to talk about it.
“I went to Linda and told her about my dilemma,” Sara said. “because I did want to be involved. I did want to help with finding and training someone to replace me. But I’m taking a risk when I make it official. There are so many scenarios that could come up, and they are pretty negative thoughts, but things can change.”
After Sara expressed her concern to Linda, they scheduled a meeting to talk through the situation with Tim (Foley). At that point, it was six months before Sara intended retire.
Linda advised them to review the steps they needed to take to prepare for Sara’s departure and to find those things that they could do before she gave official notice. For instance, Tim could begin the process of re-writing the position descriptions so they would be ready to be reviewed by HR as soon as Sara wrote her letter.
“And then, if Sara were to change her mind, that would be fine. There was no pressure for Sara to ever give me that letter,” Tim said. “There was never a time when we would have said, ‘Well, Sara we’ve been talking about this a long time, come on, it’s time to go.’”
The meeting really helped Sara. “When I walked out of that meeting, I felt relieved because I had felt pressure. Not that Tim was pressuring me, but I felt it from the inside,” she said.
“I had been thinking ‘If I don’t give notice they can’t get ready.’ So, Linda telling Tim to do what he could to work ahead on things that he could do before I gave notice allowed me to say ‘OK, the ball is in your court now for a while, I don’t have to think about it just yet.’”
Two months later – four months prior to her planned retirement date of June 5, 2015 – Sara was ready. She gave Bruce and Tim the letter.
“My husband retired the last week of January and I gave my notice the first week of February,” she said.
The Transition
Now came the tricky part: implementing the succession plan. One of the unknowns in the plan was how that current employee we mentioned earlier, Keith Hartranft, would react to the offer of an enhanced role, essentially a promotion. Until Sara’s retirement was official, Tim and Sara didn’t want to even discuss the possibility with Keith. Now that they could, what if he politely declined?
It was a calculated risk that paid off. Keith accepted the position of Chief Information Security Officer. He and Sara have been working together on the transfer of roles and responsibilities. The other part of the plan, hiring a manager of identity and access management, is currently in process.
The Best Laid Plans
Managers can learn some important things from Sara and Tim’s experience, especially when planning for a senior employee’s retirement. First and foremost, things may take longer than you hope.
“There are a lot of administrative things that go into doing what we are doing, and that couldn’t happen until Sara’s letter,” he said. “That included re-writing the PDs, a market analysis for the salary range from HR, moving Keith into his new role, and the lengthy process of hiring another employee.”
It’s possible the new person won’t be in place before Sara leaves. So Tim has a Plan B. He has budgeted for the possibility of bringing Sara in as a consultant for a short amount of time after she retires to help train that employee. Sara is open to doing that because she feels a strong sense of commitment to Lehigh.
“Right now I’m spending a lot of time working with the people who are here. We are going over things and it’s giving me the opportunity to see where there are gaps in people’s knowledge and where I need to make sure I’m documenting,” Sara said. “Even though we don’t have the person who will replace me for identity and access management in place just yet, I can help prepare that person through the documentation and training I’m doing now.”
Tim’s respect and admiration for his longtime colleague is obvious. “Sara is an excellent employee, there’s no slack time with her,” he said. “Every time we turn around, she’s on to something new. Retirement is on the horizon and yet she’s not slacking at all. She’s running meetings and documenting everything. She’s probably working harder than ever now to make the transition smoother.”
Reflecting On Their Plan
Sara has enjoyed her 15 years of work at Lehigh, but she’s ready for retirement. She’s preparing for international travel by applying for a passport. And she’s preparing for the arrival of her first grandchild in August.
An important part of truly being ready for retirement for Sara is leaving with the knowledge that she has done everything in her power to leave her area of the department on a strong footing.
It’s not easy to contemplate the end of anything. But Sara and Tim advise against being in denial.
“I think a lot of people start feeling that when they leave, things might fall apart,” Sara said. “But no one is indispensable. They really can keep going without me. You have to accept that.”
“I do want Sara to retire, she knows that,” Tim said. “We are both under the same understanding. No one wants Sara to leave but we all know Sara is going to leave.”
If you are clear-eyed and practice open communication, things will work out best for everyone. As Sara put it, "You’ve had good years here and you’ve done good things. But you have to accept that moving on is what’s best for you and that it will work out really well with what you’ve left behind."