With so many baby boomers eligible for retirement, succession planning has become more than just proactive preparation – it’s a business necessity.
Over the next five years, nearly half of the leaders at the IRS will become eligible to retire. To address this issue, the IRS established an annual evaluation process called the Leadership Session Review. This is a completely voluntary program designed to help determine the readiness of employees who are interested in moving their career to the leadership level.
The ultimate goal of the LSR program is ensuring leadership continuity and effective organizational performance. The process is divided into four stages, focusing on the skills of the employee as well as the needs and goals of the agency.
The process begins with a self-evaluation completed by the employee, when they must consider activities they can participate in to pump up their résumé and credentials. What follows is a series of reviews, conducted by current managers and executives, to determine the overall executive readiness of the participants
The process ends with conversations between the employee and their manager where the employee receives feedback and discusses suggested developmental ideas for potential future leadership opportunities.
When it comes to recruitment, this program can be a true selling point to potential applicants who not only want a job, but a long and rewarding career.
How is your agency or company indentifying its future leaders?
Recruitment 411 is the official blog of the IRS Recruitment Office.
At Montana Department of Transportation we are using a program that does this exact thing. Supervisors evaluate the employees, the employee reviews this, signs off on it and it is sent to the HR Specialist for sign off. The HR specialist can keep track of which employees need certain training to move up their career ladder. Eventually, the program will be automatic, and the HR specialist will not need to tell them about it, but until then, that’s what we have to work with.