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5.0 Pit Stop #5: Succession Planning

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5.0 Pit Stop #5: Succession Planning

Welcome to Succession Planning!

You are at the final stop in your Leader Journey!

Whether you have hired new talent externally or filled your position internally, succession planning is a key talent process that enables growth and retention.

Succession planning is a primary consideration your organization needs to make to ensure the longevity of your leader pipeline.

5.1 Succession Planning: Program Development

Developing a robust succession planning process and program ensures that employees can visualize their journey to becoming a leader, and current leaders see growth in their roles.

leading practices:
  • Provide candidates from priority groups with the opportunity to participate in informational interviews so they are able to prepare for the promotion process and receive feedback
  • Integrate equity, diversity and inclusion into leadership competencies and link back to performance evaluation
Considerations for Intermediate / Advanced Organizations
Specific actions to follow:
  1. Develop a formal succession planning program so candidates are aware of opportunities to grow within the organization, if resources are available
  2. Create a structure where employees are able to self-nominate for promotions and / or participation within a succession planning program
  3. Ensure an established structure and criteria are in place to assess candidates objectively and mitigate various biases
Priority Group
This publication from the Government of Canada provides guidance on how your organization can provide labour market opportunities for people with disabilities.

5.2 Succession Planning: Accountability

It is important you remain accountable for your role and contribution to sustaining the pipeline of leaders within your organization.

leading practices:
  • Collect disaggregated self-identification data to identify gaps in current leadership composition and where action is required
  • Place accountability by sharing progress and results towards diverse representation at leadership levels externally, via communications
Priority Group
Specific actions to follow:
  1. Actively track representation across all levels and metrics to measure priority group success in achieving leadership and board positions within the organization
  2. Leverage analytical solutions to visualize and report changes internally
Case Study
Priority Group

Succession Planning: Regional and Industry Considerations

Industry: Forestry

Statistics Canada identified that the forestry industry currently employs 17% women, 9% Racialized, Black and/or People of Colour, 7% “Aboriginal” and/or Indigenous peoples and 12% newcomers to Canada.

Due to working conditions within the forestry sector, such as often operating in remote areas, as well as performing heavy-lifting and labour, there is currently a lack of diversity within the industry.

Consider the following:

  • Provide flexibility in employment opportunities with internationally accredited individuals, who have the right skills and possess potential to grow
  • Sponsor priority group talent to grow into leadership roles
  • Consider new arrangements to help caregivers better manage work-family conflict and improve work-life balance. For example, those that require time to commute to place and pick-up their child from daycare should be provided time and accommodations to do so
These additional resources from the national Free to Grow project discuss how to advance EDI in the forestry sector.
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Considerations for Intermediate / Advanced Organizations

  • Consider augmenting the succession planning process by leveraging talent assessment tools that can provide data and link promotion decisions to evidence-based metrics
  • These metrics would take into account overall organizational succession planning to move beyond static platforms such as Excel, as well as individual leader performance

There are often challenges in retaining women and/non-binary talent and extending this specific pipeline to leadership positions.

  • When developing the succession planning program, include talent discussions for direct efforts to increase gender equality
  • Ensure that programs consider and accommodate for unique contexts, such as planning for time off required for maternity leave

Proximity bias is an unconscious, cognitive bias where individuals give preference to those in their immediate vicinity. With the rise of remote and hybrid working, this can result in favouritism and disproportionately impact some leaders who are not present in-office vs. those who are.

  • Organizations are accountable to ensuring that their succession planning process challenges bias and considers all qualified candidates, not just those who are most visibly present in physical work settings

Small/Medium Organization:

Wealthsimple

Wealthsimple is an organization that continues to make active efforts towards improving diversity and inclusion within its organization, while making its actions and progress publicly known and available.

In 2021, the organization publicly recognized the percentage of members who are women and/or non-binary, Racialized, Black, and/or People of Colour, “Aboriginal” and/or Indigenous Peoples, and 2SLGBTQ+ and/or gender and sexually diverse in its board and executive teams. However, the organization also recognized that there is still work to be done and as committed to external benchmarking and pay equity studies to continue to make progress on its movements.

Wealthsimple has further publicly announced the goal of including ableism and disability training, and engaging in a workplace survey to improve the employee experience of women. It plans to continue to launch and publish the results of its next annual Diversity and Inclusion survey.

People with disabilities are often less likely to indicate their disability on self-identification surveys, including anonymous surveys, as they have experienced discrimination and barriers to opportunity and advancement. This is due to the misconceptions associated with being an individual with a disability.

  • Move beyond Disability Management Systems and be more intentional in your efforts to ensure they are having a positive impact
  • Ensure there is an IDEA (acronym standing for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility) leader and/or committee who specifically works to create a culture of belonging and access to resources for people with disabilities
  • Incorporate accessibility and people with disabilities as key components and considerations of your overall EDI strategy
  • Place accountability specifically on ensuring employees and leaders with disabilities are hired and progressing within the organization
  • Ensure compliance with corresponding provincial legislation

Definition

Microaggression

Microaggression is defined as: “A comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group” – Source: Merriam Webster

Definition

Unlearning

Unlearning is defined as: “To make an effort to forget your usual way of doing something so that you can learn a new and sometimes better way” – Source: Cambridge Dictionary

Definition

Intersectionality

Intersectionality is defined as: A framework for understanding how different aspects of a person’s social and political identities (e.g., gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, physical appearance, etc.) combine to create unique modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies advantages and disadvantages that are felt by people due to this combination of factors – Source: Kimberlé Crenshaw, TIME

Definition

Privilege

Privilege is defined as: “The unfair and unearned advantages individuals are granted for having, or being perceived to have, social identities that align with those deemed to be superior according to societal rules and norms. It is often experienced as an absence of barriers related to a particular social identity (e.g., White privilege, straight privilege)” – Source: Egale

Definition

Safe Space

Safe Space is defined as: “A place intended to be free of bias, conflict, criticism, or potentially threatening actions, ideas, or conversations” – Source: Merriam-Webster

Safe spaces allow individuals to feel comfortable having brave and honest conversations.

Definition

Emotional Tax

Emotional Tax is defined as: “The combination of feeling different from peers at work because of gender, race, and/or ethnicity, being on guard against experiences of bias, and experiencing the associated effects on health, well-being, and ability to thrive at work” – Source: Catalyst

Definition

Tokenism

Tokenism is defined as: “Performative policies that ostensibly promote diversity or equality (placing women or diverse groups in leadership positions), but do not truly have a positive impact on the workplace. Tokenism isn’t progressive, and it especially causes harm to tokenized individuals, causing extra pressure to succeed due to being perceived as representative of a group and often leaving them in an alienating work environment” – Source: Catalyst

Definition

Psychological Safety

Psychological Safety is defined as: “An environment that encourages, recognizes and rewards individuals for their contributions and ideas by making individuals feel safe when taking interpersonal risks. A lack of psychological safety at work can inhibit team learning and lead to in-groups, groupthink and blind spots” – Source: Gartner