When an employee leaves or is promoted to a more senior role, a management position may open up in the company. When there is a vacancy, employers that look to their own internal talent can save valuable time, energy, and money if they don’t have to train an outside hire from the ground up. Because vacancies can present themselves at any time, employers should have a development plan in place.

Below are key action items to help prepare existing employees for roles as future leaders:

#1: Define:

Start by defining the skills needed to be a successful manager at your company. Keep in mind that managers must make important decisions related to hiring, promotion, discipline, termination, goal-setting, budgets, and employee motivation and engagement. In addition to general leadership skills, think about the short-term and long-term goals of your company and the type of managers needed to meet those goals.

#2: Identify:

Identify high potential employees that have the skills you believe are important to succeeding as a manager in your company. Use performance evaluations, self-assessments, and feedback from peers and supervisors to help identify these high potential employees. Once you’ve identified these employees, assess their strengths, weaknesses, and readiness for added responsibilities.

#3: Mentor:

Consider establishing a mentoring program that pairs an experienced employee with a less experienced employee. Typically, a mentor is someone other than the employee’s direct supervisor. Ongoing mentoring can help transfer knowledge and skills and prepare employees for leadership roles.

#4: Stretch:

Employees learn most of their skills through job assignments. Assigning new responsibilities to help stretch an employee’s skills or capabilities (also known as “stretch assignments”) is an effective way to develop an employee’s talents. High potential employees should not only be assigned additional responsibilities within their workgroup, but they should also gain exposure to other teams across the organization. This can help with cross-training, and a better understanding of the business as a whole, not just from a singular role.

#5: Provide feedback.

Give employees regular feedback so that they gain insight into how their professional development is progressing. Consistent feedback will help motivate employees who want to learn and grow with the company. Monitoring performance and improvement also helps to identify training needs and keep your development plan on track.

#6: Train:

Training plays an important role in developing and engaging employees who are being groomed for management positions. These employees should be encouraged to attend seminars or workshops and take courses that they may not ordinarily take in their current role, such as those dealing with employee relations, IT, and operations. To prepare for a possible promotion, employees may also be asked to obtain industry-specific licensing or certification.

Conclusion:

For an effective development plan, employers should identify high potential employees within the company and provide opportunities to those employees who are interested in pursuing senior level roles. With adequate training and development, qualified internal talent will be ready to fill openings in management as soon as the opportunity arises.