Human Capital: Insights for U.S. Agencies from Other Countries'
Succession Planning and Management Initiatives (15-SEP-03,
GAO-03-914).
Leading public organizations here and abroad recognize that a
more strategic approach to human capital management is essential
for change initiatives that are intended to transform their
cultures. To that end, organizations are looking for ways to
identify and develop the leaders, managers, and workforce
necessary to face the array of challenges that will confront
government in the 21st century. GAO conducted this study to
identify how agencies in four countries--Australia, Canada, New
Zealand, and the United Kingdom--are adopting a more strategic
approach to managing the succession of senior executives and
other public sector employees with critical skills. These
agencies' experiences may provide insights to executive branch
agencies as they undertake their own succession planning and
management initiatives. GAO identified the examples described in
this report through discussions with officials from central human
capital agencies, national audit offices, and agencies in
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, and a
screening survey sent to senior human capital officials at
selected agencies.
-------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
REPORTNUM: GAO-03-914
ACCNO: A08348
TITLE: Human Capital: Insights for U.S. Agencies from Other
Countries' Succession Planning and Management Initiatives
DATE: 09/15/2003
SUBJECT: Human resources utilization
Strategic planning
Personnel management
Best practices
Australia
Canada
New Zealand
United Kingdom
******************************************************************
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GAO-03-914
United States General Accounting Office
GAO
Report to Congressional Requesters
September 2003
HUMAN CAPITAL
Insights for U.S. Agencies from Other Countries' Succession Planning and
Management Initiatives
a
GAO-03-914
Highlights of GAO-03-914, a report to congressional requesters
Leading public organizations here and abroad recognize that a more
strategic approach to human capital management is essential for change
initiatives that are intended to transform their cultures. To that end,
organizations are looking for ways to identify and develop the leaders,
managers, and workforce necessary to face the array of challenges that
will confront government in the 21st century. GAO conducted this study to
identify how agencies in four countries-Australia, Canada, New Zealand,
and the United Kingdom- are adopting a more strategic approach to managing
the succession of senior executives and other public sector employees with
critical skills. These agencies' experiences may provide insights to
executive branch agencies as they undertake their own succession planning
and management initiatives.
GAO identified the examples described in this report through discussions
with officials from central human capital agencies, national audit
offices, and agencies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United
Kingdom, and a screening survey sent to senior human capital officials at
selected agencies.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-914.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact J. Christopher Mihm at (202)
512-6806 or [email protected].
September 2003
HUMAN CAPITAL
Insights for U.S. Agencies from Other Countries' Succession Planning and
Management Initiatives
Leading organizations engage in broad, integrated succession planning and
management efforts that focus on strengthening both current and future
organizational capacity. As part of this approach, these organizations
identify, develop, and select their human capital to ensure that
successors are the right people, with the right skills, at the right time
for leadership and other key positions. To this end, agencies in
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom are implementing
succession planning and management initiatives that are designed to
protect and enhance organizational capacity. Collectively, these agencies'
initiatives demonstrated the practices shown below.
Selected Practices Used by Agencies in Other Countries to Manage
Succession
Contents
Letter 1
Results in Brief 3
Background 6
Other Countries' Selected Practices to Manage 8
Succession
Concluding Observations 20
Agency Comments 21
Appendix
Appendix I: Objective, Scope, and Methodology
Figure Figure 1: Section of the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police's "Succession Room"
Abbreviations
AEXDP Accelerated Executive Development Program (Canada)
FCA Family Court of Australia
OAG Office of the Auditor General (Canada)
OPM Office of Personnel Management
OPS Ontario Public Service
RCMP Royal Canadian Mounted Police
SES Senior Executive Service
This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright
protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in
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separately.
A
United States General Accounting Office Washington, D.C. 20548
September 15, 2003
The Honorable Jo Ann Davis
Chairwoman
Subcommittee on Civil Service and Agency Organization
Committee on Government Reform
House of Representatives
The Honorable George V. Voinovich
Chairman
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce,
and the District of Columbia Committee on Governmental Affairs United
States Senate
Leading public organizations here and abroad recognize that a more
strategic approach to managing human capital should be the centerpiece of
any serious change management initiative to transform the cultures of
government agencies. Such organizations recognize that they need both
senior leaders who are drivers of continuous improvement and who stimulate
and support efforts to integrate human capital approaches with
organizational goals, as well as a dynamic, results-oriented workforce
with the requisite talents, knowledge, and skills to ensure that they are
equipped to achieve organizational missions.1 Leading organizations are
looking for ways to identify and develop the leaders, managers, and
workforce necessary to face the array of challenges that will confront
government in the 21st century.
We are seeing increased attention to strategic human capital management
and a real and growing momentum for change. The Congress required agencies
in the federal government to establish a chief human capital officer in
legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security enacted in
November 2002.2 One of the officer's functions is to align the agency's
human capital policies and programs with organizational mission, strategic
goals, and performance outcomes. We have reported that some U.S. agencies
have begun to take steps to more closely integrate their
1U.S. General Accounting Office, High-Risk Series: Strategic Human Capital
Management, GAO-03-120 (Washington, D.C.: January 2003).
2Title XIII of Pub. L. 107-296, Nov. 25, 2002, Chief Human Capital
Officers Act of 2002.
human capital and strategic planning processes and hold both human capital
professionals and operational managers accountable for accomplishing
organizational missions and program goals.3 More recently, the Office of
Management and Budget revised Circular A-11 to require that federal
agencies' fiscal year 2005 budget submissions as well as their annual
performance plans prepared under the Government Performance and Results
Act identify specific activities such as training, development, and
staffing that agencies plan to take to ensure leadership continuity. In
addition, as part of the Administration's efforts to implement the
President's Management Agenda, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
set the goal that continuity of leadership and knowledge is assured
through succession planning and professional development programs in 25
percent of all federal agencies by July 2004. OPM also identified the need
for agencies to reduce any current or future skill gaps in mission
critical occupations and leadership positions.
We previously reported that other countries have faced challenges in
managing their human capital and, in particular, managing individual
performance.4 In addition, other countries face a variety of
succession-related challenges. For example, Canada faces a public service
workforce with about 80 percent of both its executives and executive
feeder groups eligible to retire by the end of the decade. The United
Kingdom faces the challenge of increasing the representation of ethnic
minorities among its senior executives and has established a goal of
doubling the percentage of minority representation from 1.6 percent in
1998 to 3.2 percent by 2005. New Zealand found that past arrangements for
the governmentwide development of its senior leaders have not worked,
resulting in a shortage of fully prepared candidates for public service
leadership positions. To address this shortage, the government has
recently launched a new strategic senior leadership and management
development initiative. Finally, Australia's central federal human capital
agency recently reported on the changing career expectations among
employees and the possible attrition of experienced high-potential
employees as two succession-related challenges to government performance
in the future.
3U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Selected Agency Actions to
Integrate Human Capital Approaches to Attain Mission Results, GAO-03-446
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 11, 2003).
4U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: Insights for
U.S. Agencies from Other Countries' Performance Management Initiatives,
GAO-02-862 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 2, 2002).
At your request, this report identifies how agencies in four countries-
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom-and the Canadian
Province of Ontario are adopting a more strategic approach to managing the
succession of senior executives and other public sector employees with
critical skills. To identify these practices, we reviewed the literature
associated with succession planning and management; found examples
illustrating these practices through the results of a screening survey;
analyzed written documentation; and interviewed cognizant officials about
the identified examples. See appendix I for additional information on our
objective, scope, and methodology.
Results in Brief Leading organizations engage in broad, integrated
succession planning and management efforts that focus on strengthening
both current and future organizational capacity. As part of this approach,
these organizations identify, develop, and select their human capital to
ensure an ongoing supply of successors who are the right people, with the
right skills, at the right time for leadership and other key positions.
Agencies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom are
implementing succession planning and management initiatives that reflect
this broader focus on building organizational capacity.
While each initiative reflects its specific organizational structure,
culture, and priorities, collectively we found that agencies in these
countries use the succession planning and management practices to protect
and enhance the organization's capacity. Their experiences may provide
insights to U.S. executive branch agencies as they undertake their own
initiatives in this area.
Succession planning and management initiatives
. receive active support of top leadership;
. link to strategic planning;
. identify talent from multiple organizational levels, early in careers,
or with critical skills;
. emphasize developmental assignments in addition to formal training;
. address specific human capital challenges, such as diversity,
leadership capacity, and retention; and
. facilitate broader transformation efforts.
First, to show their support for succession planning and management,
agencies' top leadership actively participate in, regularly use, and
ensure the needed financial and staff resources for these initiatives. For
example, New Zealand's State Services Commissioner developed, with the
assistance of a group of six agency chief executives who met regularly
over a period of 2 years, a new governmentwide senior leadership and
management development strategy. In the Ontario Public Service, the
government's top civil servant and the heads of every ministry meet for an
annual 2-day retreat to discuss anticipated leadership needs across the
government as well as the high-potential executives who may be able to
meet those needs over the next year or two.
Second, agencies link succession planning and management with their
strategic plans to focus on both current and future needs and provide
leaders with a broader perspective. For the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
succession planning and management not only figures prominently in the
agency's multiyear human capital plan, but it also provides top agency
leaders with an agencywide perspective when making decisions. To this end,
the agency uses a specially designated "succession room" to provide a
visual representation of the agency's diverse and widely dispersed
operational functions, which assists top leadership in placing and
tracking executives and managers across organizational structures.
Third, agencies use their succession planning and management initiatives
to identify talent at multiple organizational levels, early in their
careers, or with critical skills. For example, the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police has three separate programs to identify and develop high-potential
employees at several organizational levels reaching as far down as the
front-line constable. The United Kingdom's Fast Stream program targets
high-potential individuals early in their careers. Other agencies use
their succession management initiatives to identify and develop successors
for employees with critical knowledge and skills. Transport Canada
anticipated that the retirements of key regulatory inspectors would
severely affect the agency's ability to carry out its mandate. The agency
encouraged the use of human capital flexibilities, such as preretirement
transitional leave, to help ensure a smooth transition of knowledge from
incumbents to successors.
Fourth, agencies' succession planning and management initiatives emphasize
developmental assignments in addition to formal training to strengthen
high-potential employees' skills and broaden their experience. For
example, Canada's Accelerated Executive Development Program
temporarily assigns executives who have the potential to become assistant
deputy ministers to work in unfamiliar roles or subject areas and in
different agencies. One challenge sometimes encountered with developmental
assignments in general is that agencies resist letting their
high-potential staff leave their current positions to move to another
organization. The Accelerated Executive Development Program has addressed
this challenge by having a central government agency pay participants'
salaries, which makes executives more willing to allow talented staff to
leave for developmental assignments. New Zealand has responded to this
challenge by appropriating funds to help defray the costs to backfill
positions for individuals on developmental assignments.
Fifth, agencies use their succession planning and management initiatives
to address specific human capital challenges such as achieving a more
diverse workforce, maintaining leadership capacity, and increasing the
retention of high-potential employees. For example, the United Kingdom
created and has actively marketed a centralized program that targets
minorities with the potential to join the Senior Civil Service. To help
maintain leadership capacity despite the fact that three quarters of
Canada's assistant deputy ministers will be retirement eligible by 2008,
the Canadian government uses the Accelerated Executive Development Program
to identify and develop executives with the potential to effectively fill
these positions in the future. To better retain talented employees with
the potential to become future leaders, Canada's Office of the Auditor
General provides comprehensive developmental opportunities as part of its
succession planning and management initiative.
Finally, agencies use succession planning and management to facilitate
broader transformation efforts by selecting and developing leaders and
managers who support and champion change. For example, the Family Court of
Australia is using its succession planning and management initiative to
identify and prepare future leaders who will be able to help the
organization successfully adapt to recent changes in how it delivers its
services, and then champion those changes throughout the Court. In the
United Kingdom, an official told us that the National Health Service uses
its succession planning and management initiative to select and place
executives who will champion broader organizational reform efforts.
We provided drafts of the relevant sections of this report to officials
from the central agencies responsible for human capital issues, the
individual agencies, and the national audit offices for each of the
countries we reviewed, as well as subject matter experts in the United
States. They
generally agreed with the contents of this report. We made technical
clarifications where appropriate. We also provided a draft of this report
to the Director of OPM for her information.
Background Many federal agencies have yet to adopt succession planning and
management initiatives. In 1997, the National Academy of Public
Administration reported that of the 27 agencies responding to its survey,
2 agencies had a succession planning program or process in place; 2
agencies were planning to have one in the coming year; and 4 agencies were
planning one in the next 2 years.5 In 1999, a joint OPM and Senior
Executive Association survey reported that more than 50 percent of all
career members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) said that their
agencies did not have a formal succession planning program for the SES,
and almost 75 percent said that their agencies did not have such a program
for managers.6 Of those who reported that their agencies did have
succession planning programs for either executives or managers, 54 percent
of the career senior executives said that they had not participated in the
executive-level programs and 65 percent said they had not participated at
the manager level. On the basis of this survey and anecdotal evidence, OPM
officials told us in 2000 that they found that most agencies would not
likely have a formal, comprehensive succession plan.7
Further, we have reported that a lack of succession planning has
contributed to two specific human capital challenges currently facing the
federal government. The first challenge is the large percentage of career
senior executives who will reach regular retirement eligibility over the
next several years. In 2000, we reported that 71 percent of the SES
members employed as of October 1998 would reach regular retirement
eligibility by
5National Academy of Public Administration, Managing Succession and
Developing Leadership: Growing the Next Generation of Public Service
Leaders (Washington, D.C.: August 1997).
61999 OPM/Senior Executive Association Survey of the Senior Executive
Service. Complete results of the survey, along with additional background
and methodological information, are available on OPM's Web site at
www.opm.gov/ses/survey.html.
7U.S. General Accounting Office, Senior Executive Service: Retirement
Trends Underscore the Importance of Succession Planning, GAO/GGD-00-113BR
(Washington, D.C.: May 12, 2000).
the end of fiscal year 2005.8 More recently, we estimated that more than
half of the SES members in federal service as of October 2000 will have
left the government by October 2007.9 We concluded that without careful
planning, these separations pose the threat of an eventual loss in
institutional knowledge, expertise, and leadership continuity.
The second challenge facing federal agencies impacted by a lack of
succession planning is the amount of diversity in their executive and
managerial ranks. As the demographics of the public served by the federal
government change, a diverse executive corps can provide agencies with an
increasingly important organizational advantage that can help them to
achieve results. We have reported that, as of 2000, minority men and women
made up about 14 percent of the career SES. If current promotion and
hiring trends continue, the proportions of minority men and women among
senior executives will likely remain virtually unchanged over the next 4
years.10
The literature shows that public and private sector organizations use a
range of approaches when planning for, and managing, succession-related
challenges. These approaches span a continuum from the "replacement"
approach, which focuses on identifying particular individuals as possible
successors for specific top ranking positions, to the "integrated"
succession planning and management approach. Under the integrated
approach, succession planning and management is a strategic, systematic
effort that works to ensure a suitable supply of potential successors for
a variety of leadership and other key positions. These two approaches
essentially reflect a shift in emphasis of succession planning from a risk
management tool, focused on the near-term, operational need to ensure
backup people are identified in case a top position becomes vacant, to a
strategic planning tool, which identifies and develops high-potential
individuals with the aim of filling leadership and other key roles in the
future.
8GAO/GGD-00-113BR.
9U.S. General Accounting Office, Senior Executive Service: Enhanced Agency
Efforts Needed to Improve Diversity as the Senior Corps Turns Over,
GAO-03-34 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 17, 2003).
10GAO-03-34.
GAO, similar to other federal agencies, faces an array of succession
planning challenges. The succession planning and management approach we
are using to respond to our internal challenges is consistent with the
practices we identified in other countries.
Other Countries' Selected Practices to Manage Succession
To manage the succession of their executives and other key employees,
agencies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom are
implementing succession planning and management practices that work to
protect and enhance organizational capacity. Collectively, these agencies'
succession planning and management initiatives
o receive active support of top leadership;
o link to strategic planning;
o identify talent from multiple organizational levels, early in careers,
or with critical skills;
o emphasize developmental assignments in addition to formal training;
o address specific human capital challenges, such as diversity,
leadership capacity, and retention; and
o facilitate broader transformation efforts.
Receive Active Support of Top Leadership
Effective succession planning and management programs have the support and
commitment of their organizations' top leadership. Our past work has shown
that the demonstrated commitment of top leaders is perhaps the single most
important element of successful management.11 In other governments and
agencies, to demonstrate its support of succession planning and
management, top leadership (1) actively participates in the initiatives,
(2) regularly uses these programs to develop, place, and promote
individuals, and (3) ensures that these programs receive sufficient
financial and staff resources, and are maintained over time.
11U.S. General Accounting Office, Management Reform: Elements of
Successful Improvement Initiatives, GAO/T-GGD-00-26 (Washington, D.C.:
Oct. 15, 1999).
For example, each year, the Secretary of the Cabinet, Ontario Public
Service's (OPS) top civil servant, convenes and actively participates in
an annual 2-day succession planning and management retreat with the heads
of every government ministry. At this retreat, they discuss the
anticipated leadership needs across the government as well as the
individual status of about 200 high-potential executives who may be able
to meet those needs over the next year or two. Similarly, in New Zealand,
the State Services Commissioner-an official whose wide-ranging human
capital responsibilities include the appointment and review of public
service chief executives-developed, with the assistance of a group of six
agency chief executives who met regularly over a period of 2 years, a new
governmentwide senior leadership and management development initiative.
This effort culminated in the July 2003 roll out of the Executive
Leadership Programme and the creation of a new central Leadership
Development Centre.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police's (RCMP) senior executive committee
regularly uses the agency's succession planning and management programs
when making decisions to develop, place, and promote its top 500-600
employees, both officers and civilians. RCMP's executive committee,
consisting of the agency's chief executive, the chief human capital
officer, and six other top officials, meets quarterly to discuss the
organization's succession needs and to make the specific decisions
concerning individual staff necessary to address those needs. In
2001-2002, this process resulted in 72 promotions and 220 lateral
transfers.
Top leaders also demonstrate support by ensuring that their agency's or
government's succession planning and management initiatives receive
sufficient funding and staff resources necessary to operate effectively
and are maintained over time. Such commitment is critical since these
initiatives can be expensive because of the emphasis they place on
participant development. For example, a senior human capital manager told
us that the Chief Executive of the Family Court of Australia (FCA) pledged
to earmark funds when he established a multiyear succession planning and
management program in 2002 despite predictions of possible budget cuts
facing FCA. Although human capital training and development programs are
sometimes among the first programs to be cut back during periods of
retrenchment, FCA's Chief Executive has repeatedly stated to both internal
and external stakeholders that this will not happen.
Similarly, at Statistics Canada-the Canadian federal government's central
statistics agency-the Chief Statistician of Canada has set aside a
percentage, in this case over 3 percent, of the total agency budget to
training and development, thus making resources available for the
operation of the agency's four leadership and management development
programs. According to a human capital official, this strong support has
enabled the level of funding to remain fairly consistent over the past 10
years. Finally, the government of New Zealand has committed NZ$19.6
million (about U.S.$11.2 million in July 2003) over four years,
representing both central government and agency contributions, for the
implementation of its new governmentwide senior leadership and management
development strategy.
Link to Strategic Planning Leading organizations use succession planning
and management as a strategic planning tool that focuses on current and
future needs and develops pools of high-potential staff in order to meet
the organization's mission over the long term. That is, succession
planning and management is used to help the organization become what it
needs to be, rather than simply to recreate the existing organization. We
have previously reported on the importance of linking succession planning
and management with the forward-looking process of strategic and program
planning.12 In Canada, succession planning and management initiatives
focus on long-term goals, are closely integrated with their strategic
plans, and provide a broader perspective.
For example, at Statistics Canada, committees composed of line and senior
managers and human capital specialists consider the human capital required
to achieve its strategic goals and objectives. During the 2001 strategic
planning process, the agency's planning committees received projections
showing that a majority of the senior executives then in place would
retire by 2010, and the number of qualified assistant directors in the
executive development pool was insufficient to replace them. In response,
the agency increased the size of the pool and introduced a development
program of training, rotation, and mentoring to expedite the development
of those already in the pool. According to a Statistics Canada human
capital official, these actions, linked with the agency's strategic
planning process, have helped to ensure that an adequate number of
assistant directors will be sufficiently prepared to succeed departing
senior executives.
12U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: A Self-Assessment
Checklist for Agency Leaders, GAO/OCG-00-14G (Washington, D.C.: September
2000).
In Ontario, succession planning and management has been a required
component of the government's human capital planning framework since 1997.
OPS requires that the head of each ministry develop a succession plan that
(1) anticipates the ministry's needs over the next couple of years, (2)
establishes a process to identify a pool of high-potential senior
managers, and (3) links the selection of possible successors to both
ministry and governmentwide opportunities and business plans. These plans,
which are updated annually at the deputy ministers retreat, form the basis
for Ontario's governmentwide succession planning and management process.
While OPS has not conducted a formal evaluation of the impact of this
process, a senior human capital official told us that succession planning
and management has received a much greater level of attention from top
leadership and now plays a critical role in OPS' broader planning and
staffing efforts.
For RCMP, succession planning and management is an integral part of the
agency's multiyear human capital plan and directly supports its strategic
needs, and it also uses this process to provide top leadership with an
agencywide perspective. RCMP is responsible for a wide range of police
functions on the federal, provincial, and local levels, such as illegal
drug and border enforcement, international peacekeeping services, and road
and highway safety. In addition, RCMP provides services in 10 provinces
and three territories covering an area larger than the United States. Its
succession planning and management system provides the RCMP Commissioner
and his executive committee with an organizationwide picture of current
and developing leadership capacity across the organization's many
functional and geographic lines.
To achieve this, RCMP constructed a "succession room"-a dedicated room
with a graphic representation of current and potential job positions for
the organization's top 500-600 employees covering its walls-where the
Commissioner and his top executives meet at least four times a year to
discuss succession planning and management for the entire organization.
For each of RCMP's executive and senior manager-level positions in
headquarters and the regions, the incumbent and one or more potential
successors are depicted on individual movable cards that display relevant
background information (see fig. 1). An electronic database provides
access to more detailed information for each incumbent and potential
successors, including skills, training, and past job experience that the
executive committee considers when deciding on assignments and transfers.
In addition, high-potential individuals as well as employees currently on
developmental assignments outside RCMP are displayed.
According to a senior human capital official, because the succession room
actually surrounds the RCMP's top leadership with an accessible depiction
of their complex and wide-ranging organization, it provides a powerful
tool to help them take a broader, organizationwide approach to staffing
and management decisions.
Figure 1: Section of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's "Succession Room"
Identify Talent from Multiple Organizational Levels, Early in Careers, or
with Critical Skills
Effective succession planning and management initiatives identify
high-performing employees from multiple levels in the organization and
still early in their careers. In addition, leading organizations use
succession planning and management to identify and develop knowledge and
skills that are critical in the workplace.
RCMP has three separate development programs that identify and develop
high-potential employees at several organizational levels. For example,
beginning at entry level, the Full Potential Program reaches as far down
as the front-line constable and identifies and develops individuals, both
civilians and officers, who demonstrate the potential to take on a future
management role. For more experienced staff, RCMP's Officer Candidate
Development Program identifies and prepares individuals for increased
leadership and managerial responsibilities and to successfully compete for
admission to the officer candidate pool. Finally, RCMP's Senior Executive
Development Process helps to identify successors for the organization's
senior executive corps by selecting and developing promising officers for
potential promotion to the senior executive levels.
The United Kingdom's Fast Stream program targets high-potential
individuals early in their civil service careers as well as recent college
graduates. The program places participants in a series of jobs designed to
provide experiences such as developing policy, supporting ministers, and
managing people and projects-each of which is linked to strengthening
specific competencies required for admission to the Senior Civil Service.
According to a senior program official, program participants are typically
promoted quickly, attaining mid-level management in an average of 3.5
years, and the Senior Civil Service in about 7 years after that.
Other agencies use their succession planning and management initiatives to
identify and develop successors for employees with critical knowledge and
skills. For example, Transport Canada estimated that 69 percent of its
safety and security regulatory employees, including inspectors, are
eligible for retirement by 2008. Faced with the urgent need to capture and
pass on the inspectors' expertise, judgment, and insights before they
retire, the agency embarked on a major knowledge management initiative in
1999 as part of its succession planning and management activities. To
identify the inspectors whose leaving would most severely affect the
agency's ability to carry out its mandate, Transport Canada used criteria
that assessed whether the inspectors (1) possessed highly specialized
knowledge, skills, or expertise, (2) held one-of-a-kind positions, (3)
were regarded as the "go-to" people in critical situations, and/or (4)
held vital corporate memory.
Next, inspectors were asked to pass on their knowledge through mentoring,
coaching, and on-the-job training. To assist this knowledge transfer
effort, Transport Canada encouraged these inspectors to use human capital
flexibilities including preretirement transitional leave, which allows
employees to substantially reduce their workweek without reducing pension
and benefits payments. The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, a federal
central management agency, found that besides providing easy access to
highly specialized knowledge, this initiative ensures a smooth transition
of knowledge from incumbents to successors.
Emphasize Developmental Assignments in Addition to Formal Training
Leading succession planning and management initiatives emphasize
developmental or "stretch" assignments for high-potential employees in
addition to formal training. These developmental assignments place staff
in new roles or unfamiliar job environments in order to strengthen skills
and competencies and broaden their experience. In the United States,
training and development opportunities-including developmental
assignments-must be offered fairly, consistent with merit system
principles. However, according to a 1999 survey of career SES in the
United States, 67 percent reported that they had never changed jobs by
going to a different component within their agency or department.
Moreover, 91 percent said that they never served in more than one
department or agency during their entire executive careers.13 Agencies in
other countries use developmental assignments, accompanied by more formal
training components and other support mechanisms, to help ensure that
individuals are capable of performing when promoted.
Participants in RCMP's Full Potential Program must complete at least two
6- to 12-month developmental assignments intended to enhance specific
competencies identified in their personalized development plans. These
assignments provide participants with the opportunity to learn new skills
and apply existing skills in different situations and experience an
increased level of authority, responsibility, and accountability. For
example, a civilian from technical operations and a police officer were
given a 1-year assignment to create balanced scorecards that are linked to
RCMP's goals. Another program assignment involved placing a line officer,
previously in charge of a single RCMP unit, in the position of acting
district commander
131999 OPM/Senior Executive Association Survey of the Senior Executive
Service. Complete results on these items as well as other survey questions
concerning SES job experience and mobility are available at
www.opm.gov/ses/s30.html.
responsible for the command of multiple units during a period of resource
and financial constraint. To reinforce the learning that comes from the
developmental assignments, participants attend a 6-week educational
program provided by Canada's Centre for Management and Development that
covers the personal, interpersonal, managerial, and organizational
dimensions of leadership. Each participant also benefits from the support
and professional expertise of a senior-level mentor. Staff who complete
this program will be required to continue their formal development as RCMP
officer candidates.
In Canada's Accelerated Executive Development Program (AEXDP),
developmental assignments form the cornerstone of efforts to prepare
senior executives for top leadership roles in the public service. Canada
created AEXDP in 1997 to strategically manage the development of senior
executives who have the potential to become assistant deputy ministers
within 2 to 6 years. AEXDP prepares individuals for these senior
leadership positions through the support of coaches and mentors, formal
learning events, and placements in a series of challenging developmental
assignments. These stretch assignments help enhance executive competencies
by having participants perform work in areas that are unfamiliar or
challenging to them in any of a large number of agencies throughout the
Canadian Public Service. For example, a participant with a background in
policy could develop his or her managerial competencies through an
assignment to manage a direct service delivery program in a different
agency. Central to the benefit of such assignments is that they provide
staff with the opportunity to practice new skills in a real-time setting.
Further, each assignment lasts approximately 2 years, which allows time
for participants to maximize their learning experience while providing
agencies with sufficient opportunity to gain a real benefit from the
participants' contributions.
AEXDP reinforces the learning provided by the developmental assignments
with activities such as "action learning groups" where small groups of
five or six program participants meet periodically to collectively reflect
on and address actual work situations or challenges facing individual
participants. A senior official involved in the program told us that the
developmental placements help participants obtain in-depth experience in
how other organizations make decisions and solve problems, while
simultaneously developing a governmentwide network of contacts that they
can call on for expertise and advice in the future.
One challenge sometimes encountered with developmental assignments in
general is that executives and managers resist letting their
high-potential staff leave their current positions to move to another
organization. Agencies in other countries have developed several
approaches to respond to this challenge. For example, once individuals are
accepted into Canada's AEXDP, they are employees of, and paid by, the
Public Service Commission, a central agency. Officials affiliated with
AEXDP told us that not having to pay participants' salaries makes
executives more willing to allow talented staff to leave for developmental
assignments and it fosters a governmentwide, rather than an
agency-specific, culture among the AEXDP participants.
In New Zealand, a senior official at the State Services Commission, the
central agency responsible for ensuring that agencies develop public
service leadership capability, told us that the Commission has recommended
legislation that would require that agency chief executives work in
partnership with the State Services Commissioner to find ways to release
talented people for external developmental assignments. In addition, the
government has appropriated NZ$600,000 (about U.S.$344,000 in July 2003)
over the next 4 years to help the Commissioner assist agency chief
executives who might like to release an individual for a developmental
assignment but are inhibited from doing so because of financial
constraints, including those associated with finding a replacement.
Address Specific Human Capital Challenges
Leading organizations stay alert to human capital challenges and respond
accordingly. Government agencies around the world, including in the United
States, are facing challenges in the demographic makeup and diversity of
their senior executives. Agencies in other countries use succession
planning and management to achieve a more diverse workforce, maintain
their leadership capacity as their senior executives retire, and increase
the retention of high-potential staff.
Achieve a More Diverse Workforce. Leading organizations recognize that
diversity can be an organizational strength that contributes to achieving
results. Our work has shown that U.S. federal agencies will need to
enhance their efforts to improve diversity as the SES turns over.14 In
14GAO-03-34.
addition, OPM has identified an increase in workforce diversity, including
in mission critical occupations and leadership roles, as one of its human
capital management goals for implementing the President's Management
Agenda. Both the United Kingdom and Canada use succession planning and
management systems to address the challenge of increasing the diversity of
their senior executive corps.
For example, the United Kingdom's Cabinet Office created Pathways, a
2-year program that identifies and develops senior managers from ethnic
minorities who have the potential to reach the Senior Civil Service within
3 to 5 years. This program is intended to achieve a governmentwide goal to
double the representation of ethnic minorities in the Senior Civil Service
from 1.6 percent in 1998 to 3.2 percent by 2005. Pathways provides
executive coaching, skills training, and the chance for participants to
demonstrate their potential and talent through a variety of developmental
activities such as projects and short-term work placements. A Cabinet
Office official told us that the program is actively marketed through a
series of nationwide informational meetings held in locations with large
ethnic minority populations. In addition, program information is sent to
government agency chief executives and human capital directors, and the
top 600 senior executives across the civil service, and executives are
encouraged to supplement the self-nominating process by nominating
potential candidates. This official noted that although the first Pathways
class will not graduate until November 2003, 2 out of the 20 participants
have already been promoted to the Senior Civil Service.
Rather than a specific program, Canada uses AEXDP, an essential component
of their succession planning and management process for senior executives,
as a tool to help achieve a governmentwide diversity target. For example,
the government has set a goal that by 2003, certain minorities will
represent 20 percent of participants in all management development
programs. After conducting a survey of minorities, who showed a
considerable level of interest in the program, officials from AEXDP
devoted 1 year's recruitment efforts to identify and select qualified
minorities. The program reported that, in the three prior AEXDP classes,
such minorities represented 4.5 percent of the total number of
participants; however, by March 2002, AEXDP achieved the goal of 20
percent minority participation. In addition, an independent evaluation by
an outside consulting firm found that the percentage of these minorities
participatinllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll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