Right now is a great time to be thinking about company growth, but where are your future leaders going to come from?

It is estimated that approximately a third of the workforce will soon be eligible for retirement, but who is in line to replace these experienced and valued employees?  Considering the reality that there is already a shortage of skilled candidates in the workforce, this could be evidence that in recent years succession planning has perhaps fallen by the wayside to make way for dealing with the ever present ‘here and now’ issues.  The result may be that in the future there is a shortage of staff to succeed vital roles within a company, which may be a potential costly and risk-laden predicament.  In previous generations, businesses were principally family focused with a succession plan happening naturally in the form of offspring who would take on more responsibility as the older generation took on less, after handing over their lifetime of wisdom gained within a specific industry.  However, those of us without this option will have to look outside our own gene pool to either promote internally or recruit new personnel.  A well implemented succession planning strategy should ideally occur at least two to five years in advance to ensure that a company will have highly qualified and experienced people in key positions, when they are required.

Succession planning requires more than simply assessing and identifying potential candidates, a company must also invest in the development and training of the candidate within a particular role.

Some of the current skill shortage in the New Zealand Fashion Industry could easily be attributed to the reluctance of companies to take on and train up junior candidates over the past decade, however some businesses have stepped up to the mark by providing this much needed opportunity to our new graduates.  Succession planning requires more than simply assessing and identifying potential candidates, a company must also invest in the development and training of the candidate within a particular role.  This applies to candidates at all levels, as each company has a unique structure and culture that new employees will need to become familiarised with.  After initial recruitment, employees need guidance to develop their abilities and to prepare for advancement within the company.  Once the training is complete, the candidate will be ready to step up and replace vital roles as the need arises, however, the more senior the role, the longer this will take.  It is important that the company also focuses on retaining the candidate to ensure a return on this training investment, which may mean communicating directly with them in regards to their significance in the company and their chance for promotion into fundamental positions in the future.

The most important question, however, is where will the company find these potential candidates?  Also, how does a particular company compete for a great candidate against other companies, in a market where prospective employees are spoiled for choice?  Forward-thinking companies are solving this problem by recruiting top-level graduates and allowing them to gain experience in all facets of the company, in order to ensure the candidate has a diverse range of skills in a variety of job categories within the company.  One main advantage of employing a new graduate is that the company can train and develop the candidate based on the principals and objectives of their individual business strategy.  Graduates arrive with little experience but are fast learning, open to new ideas and adapt to new ideas easily and quickly.  They are flexible and tend not to be ‘set in their ways’, while being technologically competent and good at problem solving and finding solutions.  Graduates can offer new solutions and techniques that can have a positive impact on the business, as well as bringing in fresh ideas, perspectives, innovations and energy - elements that are crucial to success in the fashion industry.

Due to the academic year having ended recently, now is the perfect time to snap up those talented graduates to ensure your company has a succession planning strategy for next year and five or fifty years from today.