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Change and Transformation
“The Beacon Group’s program proved to be a transformational experience for our staff, and has created a new, more open culture of creativity and collaboration that has given The Globe and Mail a marked and measurable competitive advantage.” — Phillip Crawley
“The Beacon Group’s thought provoking curriculum utilizes best practice tools and interactive media for evaluation, assessment and overall learning. It has helped us raise the bar on our calibre of talent.” — Ernst Lieb
“The Beacon Group was able to handle our 360 reviews across 9 offices in a manner that brought significant value to our partners, the firm and ultimately our clients.” — Judson Whiteside
“The human capital programs provided by The Beacon Group are best in class.” — Tye Burt
“The Beacon Group acted as a strategic partner and was instrumental in helping us raise the bar on candid dialogue and team performance.” — Robert Courteau
“The Beacon Group approaches very serious and difficult topics in an accessible and insightful way.” — Eric Siegel
“We engaged The Beacon Group when we needed to bring two cultures together after our first major international acquisition: the evidence of their success lies in both the subsequent growth in our business and our presence in more than twelve countries on five continents.” — Rupert Duchesne
“The Beacon Group excels in facilitating open & candid dialogue that has fostered superior team performance.” — Mary Ellen Carlyle
“Top-level thought leadership, combined with practical, cost-effective solutions—that’s the real value the Beacon Group team brings to bear on Foresters talent challenges.” — Suanne Nielsen
“The Beacon Group delivered cutting edge perspectives on many human capital topics that were tailored and customized to our company in a way that we could not have obtained at more generic, cookie-cutter advising shops.” — Doug Lord
“Doug Williamson and his team were of invaluable assistance in helping our organization navigate through a completely new strategic planning process and emerge with a three year plan resoundingly endorsed by our Board. Doug’s global perspectives and ability to drive consensus was an integral part of our success.” — Don Forgeron
“The Global HR & Communications senior team engaged the Beacon Group in shepherding us through a unique strategic planning process that involved an outside-in view of our current and future workforce and how this aligns to our business strategy. Thanks to Doug and his team it was a thought provoking process that sharpened our strategic thinking and, in the end, made our strategy stronger.” — Sylvia Chrominska
“The Beacon Group’s customized and personalized approach fit our needs perfectly. From the initial self-discovery phase all the way to recommending solutions, the work they have done has been consistently world-class. They combine strong analytics with a wealth of real world experience. They are focused, targeted and are experts at taking theoretic concepts and making them real. We look forward to working with Doug and his team as we continue to elevate our business and improve our internal performance.” — Don Romano
“I have had the pleasure of working with The Beacon Group and Doug Williamson for several years across several organizations and have always been impressed with their professionalism, work ethic and customer orientation. Doug's own highly energetic and highly customized approach to the specific needs of our business and our leadership team sets him apart from other strategic facilitators and objective "thought provokers" I have experienced. I am always grateful and impressed by the tangible results his interventions tend to produce.” — Lloyd A. Perlmutter
“The big contribution was The Beacon Group challenged our culture and our comfort level. We then arrived at a clear plan of concise deliverables that we needed to execute to move forward on our vision.” — Tony Ambler
“SKF approached The Beacon Group to develop our Talent Management program. The process implemented by Doug Williamson and his team was extremely important for us in determining how to execute the program on a clear, organized and systematic way. This was one of our most important projects that will enable us to ensure our sustainable growth.” — João Ricciarelli
“Through its sound and strategically practical business knowledge and experience The Beacon Group has and continues to assist SCI in better understanding and enabling our organization to build engaged teams and leadership capability to help make our supply chain clients more competitive.” —John Ferguson |
Provocative PropositionsIn the hyperactive and challenging world in which we all live, it is becoming harder and harder for business leaders to find time to read, reflect and gain insight from the many valuable sources at our disposal. In "Provocative Propositions", The Beacon Group attempts to fill that void by offering our opinion, often rather pointed, on a wide array of issues we believe are relevant to leading a modern organization. The articles are catalogued into 12 categories so you can quickly and easily find a topic of particular interest. We then offer three easy steps under the heading "In Our Opinion" to help business leaders take action on the key themes. Simply click on the category and read away. The Succession Planning Challenge
In sports there are starters, and there are players that come in off the bench. In biology, cells divide. In business there is succession planning, and depth charting. Each of these processes is equally important to the longevity of their respective system. Too many companies today are far too focussed on today, and not spending enough time on the future.
In times of uncertainty it has now become essential for organizations to be aware of the performance, as well as the potential of each of their employees. In many businesses however succession planning, and depth charting are concepts that are often discussed - yet rarely given any quality time. Often managers have a loose concept of the identities top performers, but as far as the rest of their team there is no real concept. In these days of tighter budgets, and streamlined personnel this topic cannot be overlooked. The issue goes much deeper than the need to fill key positions upon an employee separation, it has to do with talent management. In their book "Semper Fi" authors Dan Carrison and Rod Walsh argue that proper succession planning affects high potential employees to the greatest extent. They are the segment of your employee base that require the greatest level of reward, recognition and growth. Therefore, to keep them engaged, you must help them plan their progression throughout the organization. 4 Stages of Succession Planning At The Beacon Group, we believe a Succession Planning system must reflect not just the times in which we live but our emerging and future needs as well. To this end, you need a living system: a system made up of an integrated network of intelligent connections; a system that looks more like the inside of your computer than the inside of your filing cabinet. We believe that this system needs to incorporate a series of critical components but it also has to be a system where the relationship between the components is as important as the components themselves. One of the key roles of a manager, is to effectively direct the talent management process for their team. The process encompasses for distinct stages, identification, appraisal, managing, and development. Each stage has distinct objectives, and together they will significantly leverage the full value of your human capital. The Identification Stage involves a number of 'recruiting' initiatives. Searches must be conducted both in-house and externally to identify key employees, or potential employees that will ultimately serve as the future of the organization. The Appraisal Stage should involve a series of assessments including multi-rater (360°) feedback and performance appraisals, as well as a Capability Identification Map that allows both the manager and employee determine the employee's effectiveness in key competencies. The Management Stage should assist the manager and employee determine a probable progression path for the employee. Using the results from the Appraisal stage, managers should plot the ideal career path, as well as development and qualification needs for the employee to reach these stages. In the case of the high-potential, high-performance candidates, managers should assign stretch targets, and assign these individuals to cross-functional teams to gain increased exposure to different areas within the organization. The Development Stage involves ensuring that the employee's development needs as determined by both the assessments in the Appraisal stage, and the career planning in the Management stage are met. The role of the manager in this stage is to work closely with the organization's learning development co-ordinator, making certain that the development opportunities are in line with the specific needs of the employee. The tools in these stages are available and should be used to help your organization build a state-of-the-art 'system' that redefines the meaning of Succession Planning. With all of these stages being pursued with conviction, your employees will be engaged, and aligned with the organization. |
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