Succession Planning Roadmap Critical to Your Enrollment Management Effort

Christine Gormican Hierl
President
Gormican Heirl Consulting

Author H. Stanley Judd had it right when he said “A good plan is like a road map: it shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there.? The problem is today, many view the roadmap as a dated tool, usurped by the soothing electronic voice of a GPS on the dash, telling trusting drivers where and when to turn.

Just as you need to know where you?re going on the road, so goes the need to know your final destination when it comes to your succession planning efforts for your admissions teams. Without a plan in place and a full understanding of where you are going ahead of time, your offices will get lost in the detail.

Succession planning is a process of ensuring availability of competent personnel to take over a position when an incumbent leaves. It ensures that the business operations continue without disruption. This is especially critical in our admissions offices when our staffs often need months to learn our campuses? product, schedule, process and methodology.

Many enrollment professionals understand the importance of succession planning but fail to grasp the true essence of what succession planning is. It is more than identifying a successor and equipping him or her with the knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies of the predecessor.

Rather, a good succession planning exercise requires under-standing the critical challenges the admissions office has currently and will face in the short to medium term as well as the skill sets that the personnel require to lead the team through such challenges.

Candidate Selection

When a turnover occurs, be it a director of admissions or an enrollment advisor, one common dilemma is whether to consider internal candidates or external candidates as successors. There are benefits and risks to both, but often the risks with external candidates are higher due to the uncer-tainty of the candidate. Unfortunately, because no succession plan exists, many admissions managers go for an external candidate by default, as they do not have a successor prepared to take the position. A better choice is to identify employees with high potential and actively plan their careers and development to build ?bench strength.? For example, an admissions support person or admissions administrator could be a very productive enrollment advisor. They know the product, the environment, as well as the office and campus leadership. In the nearly 20 years of running admissions environments across platforms and colleges (graduate, undergraduate, online, on sight) I have had success with this process. This also works when appointing an assistant director or director of admissions from your enrollment advisor core.

Succession planning best practices requires both starting the succession planning process early to ensure internal candidates become ready when the transition time approaches and keeping the ?pipeline full? of new candidates simultaneously.

Methodology

The process of traditional succession planning typically comprises many methods such as rotations in different functional areas for hands-on experience or cross training. An effective way to adapt this to an admissions office is by mentoring. Many mentors however make the mistake of only passing on knowledge. Although transferring knowledge is critical, effective mentoring for succession planning requires focus on equipping the successor to achieve performance goals by building on recognized strengths and to improve their proficiency and competence. Another best practice that I have had success with is having key information located in one place. Before the electronic library repository was created, I built large manuals breaking down all of the core competencies necessary for each position: admissions support, enrollment advisor, assistant director of admissions, director of admissions and dean of admissions. It was an effective reference tool and utilized by all levels of staff.

Finally, a good succession planning program involves periodic evaluation of its effectiveness and adapting it to the changing needs of your offices and of your campus as a whole.

Timing

One of the most crucial aspects of succession planning is timing. It is impossible to get the identified candidate ready at the exact time the incumbent leaves the admissions office. Delaying the start of succession planning or phasing in too slowly might mean that the candidate will not be ready in time and as a result be overlooked in favor of an external candidate. The goal is to ensure that the successor is ready to take over before the incumbent leaves.

Finally, keeping the succession planning process simple is critical. It can be made too complicated by elaborate forms and processes. When this happens, the process usually dominates the discussion rather than focusing on the talents, skills and knowledge of the candidates. It is also important to remember that each person learns and develops differently. A best practice I have encountered is to personalize the development through informal coaching, ongoing feedback and mentoring?at all levels.

During these challenging times, our admissions offices can’t miss a beat and must be clear on where and when they will arrive. By implementing a succession plan, we will have a roadmap that will take our admissions departments in the right direction for the future.

Christine Gormican Hierl is an accomplished sales management executive specializing in leadership development, team building, succession planning, management development and management in a multi-location and multi-brand environment. For more information, please visit her website at www.gormicanhierl.com.