Identifying and nurturing future leaders within the business was a key issue discussed at last week’s breakfast forum, with all four panellists highlighting the problems while stressing the importance of seeking out key personnel able to take up the compa
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For iiNet’s Michael Malone, the issue of succession planning was quite a topical one. Earlier this year there was speculation that his position as managing director may be in jeopardy following a month-long trading halt, a near 40 per cent cut in forecast earnings, and the company’s share price plummeting.
“In terms of succession for my role…there is a couple of people sitting at the table down there right now who would probably love to test the succession planning fairly promptly,” Mr Malone said.
On a more serious note, he said the business had always struggled to bridge the gap from mid-level managers and up to senior level management.
“We have had very mixed results over the last couple of years…probably less than 20 per cent of our executive team have come from inside the company,” he said. “Most are external hires.”
One strategy that has been viewed by Mr Malone as a success has been the rotation of employees through iiNet’s various departments over the past year, which had provided key personnel with a broader view of the workings of the company.
“This has proved very successful, I think,” he told the breakfast gathering. “We have people who now have experience across three or four departments in the company and these have been radical moves, such as from technical areas into human resources and customer service for short stints of six months.
“This is an area we would like to have a bit more focus on and hopefully thereafter be able to grow some potential senior executives in the future.”
A young workforce with little ambition of taking on a partnership role was a particular problem in succession planning for Gooding Pervan.
“They are not looking for the responsibility of partnership; they are not looking for the responsibility of personal guarantees and deadlines at this point in time,” Gooding Pervan partner, Suzan Pervan said.
“Maybe that is a sign of the good times and that there are a lot of jobs around and that may change, but we are not seeing that at the moment.”
It was a view echoed by Argonaut’s Edward Rigg, who said it was important to gauge whether an employee would be a future leader of the firm at the point of entry to the business.
“We do spend quite a period of time thinking about how Argonaut will look like in 10 years’ time or 20 years’ time,” he said.
“It is quite difficult in broking and investment banking businesses which, by their very nature, are made up of people with very large egos who all think they are really good at everything, so trying to manage those people is quite difficult.”
For Trailcraft’s Brett Martin, the idea of developing a succession plan has not been at the forefront of his mind.
“We are still in our infancy and so it is something we haven’t really focused on,” he said.
