Succession Planning in EMS

No matter the type of service you work for, you need to understand the concepts of succession planning in order to pass on the mantle of leadership. Wikipedia defines succession planning as "the process of identifying and preparing suitable employees through mentoring, training and job rotation to replace key players ... within an organization as their terms expire."

Succession planning establishes a process that recruits employees, develops their skills and abilities, and prepares them for advancement, all while retaining them to ensure a return on training investment. Succession planning involves:

• Understanding the organization's long-term goals and objectives;
• Identifying the workforce's developmental needs;
• Determining workforce trends and predictions.

There is no single best way to conduct succession planning. In fact, many individuals involved in succession planning find it beneficial to use concepts from several sources, rather than one primary theory. The following provides an overview of key aspects that might be considered.

How to Proceed

As an EMS administrator, how do you change the traditional reactionary mind-set of your agency to develop a succession plan that's well-thought-out, rational and, eventually, complied with?

Before initiating the planning process, determine which key positions you feel require succession plans (this may only be one or two positions). Obviously, your own position is included, but consider requiring your entire management team to create succession plans for their positions as well. In doing so, assure them that the need for creating a succession plan is not because their current employment is at risk, but to be sure they are promotable if that option becomes available.

Consider potential successors in light of their abilities and commitment to the mission and vision of your agency. You need not limit potential successors to those within your organization, or even within the EMS industry. If a position is truly management or leadership, the key element is core skills. There is often great debate about whether it's easier to teach an EMS field provider management and leadership skills, or hire a person with great management and leadership skills and teach them about EMS.

Once you identify a person or two, let them know you think they'd be a good successor. It's important that both parties understand each other, so you can both lay out some goals and expectations. Be sure they realize that through the identification and development process, you are not guaranteeing a future promotion, but rather creating options.

If a potential candidate agrees to be part of the succession program, work together to develop a written action plan to prepare them appropriately. This may include educational programs, internships, shadowing of key personnel at the workplace or any other developmental opportunity you both feel would be valuable. This is the time to clearly delineate the actual work (both day-to-day and longer-term) associated with the position. When establishing this program, set reasonable time frames for completion that correlate with the goals as written, as well as a written expectation of how costs, logistics and other areas will be handled.

The last step is to determine with the potential successor an estimated time frame to prepare, with specific dates for milestone completion. The overall development period may be six months or six years. The duration does not matter as much as setting the actual goals. This way, the expectations are clearly understood on both sides.

An often-overlooked but critical element is the ability for the person being succeeded to step aside, which is often harder than you'd think. Once you and your agency have determined that a succession plan will occur, participants should remain true to the purpose of the process. Allowing successors to make decisions at all levels (business, operational and administrative), while experiencing both the positive and negative consequences, is perhaps the most critical step in succession planning. Stepping aside can be challenging for managers, but is critical to success.

Conclusion

Usually, the head of an EMS agency plans well in advance for departure, leaving a lot of time for things to be handled appropriately. Sometimes, though, fate has a way of not allowing much time. Planning by following the steps above may be one of the elements that keeps your EMS agency on track through otherwise bumpy times. With effective, well-thought-out and followed-up-on succession planning, a current employee will be ready to step up when someone leaves.

Resources

• Succession Planning: https://humanresources.about.com/od/successionplanning/Succession_Planning.htm
• Succession Planning: https://managementhelp.org/staffing/planning/sccs_pln/sccs_pln.htm
• Succession Planning 101: www.successionplanning101.com
• Effective Succession Planning: Ensuring Leadership Continuity And Building Talent From Within: William J. Rothwell, AMACOM, 2005.
• Succession Planning Basics (ASTD Training Basics Series): Christee Gabour Atwood, ASTD Press, 2007.
• Workforce Planning: 90 Day Action Plan Handbook: Jeffrey H. Gross, TopGrade Workforce Planning, 2009.

Raphael M. Barishansky, MPH, is chief of public health emergency preparedness for Prince George's County (MD) Health Department. A frequent contributor to and editorial advisory board member of EMS World Magazine, he can be reached at rbarishansky@gmail.com.