Succession Planning
Memorandum
To: Hopkins City Council
From: Jim Genellie
Date: October 31, 2014
Subject: Succession Planning
Employee turnover is something the City faces every year.
On average, eight employees leave each year.
What will be different in the next five years is that there will be a greater number of
retirements. We are already aware of four employees who will be retiring in 2015. Normally
we have half that number.
The difference between an employee retiring and an employee resigning is the amount of
experience which is lost. On average a retiring employee will leave after working for the
City for almost 24 years. The employee who resigns has an average of seven years of
experience.
Realizing that these retirements are going to occur, what can the City do to prepare?
Identify employees who will be retiring
In the short term, the City’s Advance Resignation Notice program has worked very well
to identify employees retiring within the next six months. This program provides a
financial incentive to employees to give at least two months’ notice and as much as six
months. Prior to this program it was not unusual for retiring employees to give two
weeks’ notice. Longer term, looking at the age and years of service of employees
allows us to project a likely 3 to 5 year window for retirees.
Institutionalize the knowledge that retiring employees possess.
Long time employees have acquired a great deal of knowledge about the City including
how and why decisions were made. In the past much of this knowledge was never
written down. Now there is a much better record of decisions, policies, and even where
the pipes are buried. Employees who have announced retirement are tasked with
organizing and documenting the knowledge that they possess.
Identify and train possible internal candidates to fill the positions of retiring employees.
For many organizations, this process constitutes succession planning. However, the
size of the Hopkins workforce limits our ability do this. Many of the city’s positions
require specialized training or education. The City does have a tuition reimbursement
program. We have also been willing to provide additional training. But there is a limited
pool of employees available to get this training or education.
The City remains committed to promoting from within. This has worked well in some
departments, primarily the Police Department. In other cases employees who have
considerable seniority and technical knowledge have not had the temperament to be
good managers.
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When hiring from outside the City, try to have some overlap between the new hire and
the retiring employee.
The City’s Advanced Resignation Notice program often makes this possible with
retirements.
Ensure that the salaries of the retiring employees are competitive with the market so
that qualified individuals can be found as replacements.
This has not always been possible due to budget constraints. However, we continue to
look at how our wages line up with the market.
Below is a table showing the average age of our full-time employees and the number that
are likely to retire in the next five years.
Employees
Average likely to
Employee Group age
retire in 5 yrs
All full-time employees 46 17
Administration & Finance 56 3
Community Services 53 5
PED & Housing 51 3
Police Department 39 1
Public Works 48 5
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