Presentation by Karin M. Smith, MBA, SFO, CFE at the Association of School Business Officials International Annual Conference, September 2018

1. Establishing a
Succession Focused
Organization
2018 Association of School Business Officials Annual Conference
Karin Smith, HeinfeldMeech

2. Introduction
 Why is it important to create a succession organization?
 What is a succession organization?
 Who is involved in succession?
 How do you create a succession organization?
 When do you start this process?
 Where can you find more resources?

3. Why?
 Succession planning identifies future leaders
 Succession planning can be an important way to identify
employees who have the current skills--or the potential to develop
skills--that can help them move up in an organization, or on to
other positions
 Who makes up your current staff?
 Baby Boomers
 Gen X
 GenY
 Gen Z
 Retirement is upon us
 Resignations are upon us

4. What?
 Succession is a normal dynamic that affects every organization at
one time or another
 Nobody stays in a job forever!
 Not just a “top down” concern limited to exit planning for the
Superintendent, CFO, Director
 Succession planning is about investing in your District’s greatest
asset – your human capital

5. What?
 A succession organization identifies, recruits, trains and retains
“STAR” employees
 Values and encourages a culture of achievement at each level of
employment
 Promotes upward opportunity
 Anticipates turn over in all positions so that employee departure
at any level will not negatively affect the organization’s
performance

6. Who?  Everyone!

7. How?
Understand your District’s cultural personality and your
department lifecycle stage
 Startup
 Growth
 Maturity
 Decline
 Renewal/Turn-around
 Shut Down/Take-over
 Capacity is evaluated based on capacity (the means), performance
(measurement) and effectiveness (impact)

8. How?

9. How?
Hire for Skill + Experience + Education
 Skill:The ability to do something well; expertise
 Experience:A direct observation of or participation in events as a
basis of knowledge
 Education:The process of receiving or giving instruction. A body
of knowledge acquired while being educated

10. How?
Hire top-notch people in entry positions then develop them into
future leaders
 Know who you are hiring – GenY and Gen Z

11. How?
“Solicit” rather than hire your staff
 Hire potential vs everyone
 Consider every position
 Developing internally takes time and effort, homegrown is a
successful model
 Map the gaps of your department

12. How?
Invest in your staff in ways that matter to them
 Do you know what is important?
 Have you asked?
 “Stay” interviews vs “Exit” interviews
 Ask current employees why they continue to work for your
organization
 Assess the degree of satisfaction and engagement
 What is important to them?
 What motivates them?
 What is a reward in their eyes?

13. How?
Build cross-disciplinary and cross-trained teams working towards
a common purpose. This increases emotional ownership!
 Cross-Disciplinary – employees will experience different functional
areas
 Cross-Trained – employees will be trained to complete a variety of
job functions
 Documentation – what are your procedures? HOW is the work
performed? WHO does the task?WHEN is the task performed?
WHAT is actually done?WHERE is the information obtained from?

14. How?
Create “stepping-up” opportunities
 Promote teamwork across functional areas – don’t work in a silo
 Be generous with information
 Let your employees make decisions
 Be passionate about your mission
 Create clear roles

15. How?
Retain and reward your stars
 What can be done with public dollars?
 Leadership opportunity
 Modified work schedule
 Telecommuting
 Performance based pay

16. When?
When is the time to build a Succession organization?

17. Discussion
Thank you!

18. Contact
Karin M. Smith, MBA, SFO, CFE
Partner
Heinfeld, Meech & CO., P.C.
602-237-7953
karin.smith@heinfeldmeech.com