TM - August 2007 - (Page 40) recruitment & retention assessment & evaluation compensation & benefits performance management learning & development succession planning EXCELA HEALTH: DEVELOPMENT KEY FACET IN RETENTION OF HIGH POTENTIALS Kellye Whitney At this point, who isn’t aware of the war for talent? Companies are firing up succession planning activities like grills on a holiday weekend, and those that aren’t in the beginning stages are kicking their existing talent management efforts into high gear. Excela Health is no different. Jill Clements, vice president of human resources administration, said the organization understands the importance of not only retaining high-potential employees but also developing them. The health system was formed almost three years ago from a merger of three community hospitals within a 15-mile radius in Pennsylvania. It has experienced a lot of changes and growing pains typically associated with such a move, including high turnover of both high-level and high-potential employees. Clements said that during the transition following the merger, the need for retention and succession planning efforts became glaringly apparent. “It’s been a hectic three years, but we’re at a point where we really do need to develop our long-term strategy and leadership — losing the best people really hurts an organization in its infancy,” Clements said. “We’re not far from UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center), which is a major international health system, and we don’t just want to be training ground for their leaders. You put a lot of energy and time into getting people oriented, making them competent in your particular hospital environment, getting them trained to a certain standard — you don’t want to lose them.” One of Excela’s strategies to retain top performers centers on development. To help identify, motivate and develop high-potential talent, Excela began an in-house management development course to get 50 of its managers on the same level in regard to management skills. It also partnered with The Advisory Board Co. and selected seven nominated, high-potential individuals to participate in a two-year leadership development program. Both programs are now complete, and although Excela has decided not to continue either next year because of cost constraints, it has not abandoned the development process. Clements said the health system is rethinking its development strategy and succession plan, especially now that its board of directors has indicated the senior team also needs to develop a succession plan. “We’ve been fortunate that in the last two years, we haven’t had any turnover in the senior leadership ranks, but we will see that happening in the next two years as a couple of them will be retiring,” Clements said. “Our chief medical officer did retire, and he prepared the associate chief medical officer to take his place. Individuals are doing (succession planning), but I can’t say there’s an overall system strategy to make sure somebody has a plan if they should get run over by a bus, decide to retire or move on to another location.” The next move for the two-year development program’s seven participants (Clements is one) will depend on their senior leaders and what the participants are individually motivated to do now that the course has ended. Clements said there will be objectives and personal development goals set for each person. “We committed at the beginning that if the system was going to make this investment in us, we would, within our ability, make the commitment to be here for two years, and I think we all feel like we’ve been given a gift,” she said. “It does make us feel good about working for the organization. This phase of the development process is over, and the expectation is that we need to have another discussion about longterm goals and objectives with each of our leaders and see where we go from here.” Managers and directors on Excela’s organizational excellence and organizational development task forces also have identified a goal to develop a succession plan for staff-level people that will identify high-potential people, their skill needs and ways they can get or learn the necessary skills. Clements said that once this piece of Excela’s succession plan is up and running, it will be very valuable to the organization, as will the electronic performance-appraisal program being implemented. One of the program’s components is a needs assessment, for which employees complete a self-evaluation using a checklist or menu to identify courses they would like to see, as well as to determine what their self-development needs might be. “Because it’s electronic, we’ll be able to aggregate all of that information and plan our education program around self-development needs, which is exciting because the only way we had to do that before was anecdotally or when a problem arose,” Clements said. “This is all developmental, but we recognize the importance, and we have a number of different levels that are working on it within the organization. It’s not terribly exciting, but it’s a beginning.” 40 talent management magazine www.TalentMgt.com http://www.TalentMgt.com
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