California Lutheran University
May27, 2014
Introduction
This chapter will make a conclusive argument of this study. By reviewing the arguments elucidated in chapter one, the findings of the review of extant literature in chapter two of the study and the results of the comparative case study in chapter four, this chapter will then make recommendations concerning the best way in which Ventura Health Agency and County Library should plan for leadership changes. The chapter will also make recommendations on the best way in which the two agencies should handle the challenges they face in succession planning. All these recommendations will be based on the findings of the research and the results of the comparative case studies.
A detailed review of the findings:
According to Dresang (2009), whose propositions have been adequately considered in chapter two of this research paper, there is a need to have a good strategy for the human resource succession planning sector. This is because at no time should there be a void at any position in the human resource sector. It is therefore extremely important to have a good plan that ensures that the various positions that the Ventura Health Agency and the Ventura County Library have are constantly occupied by experienced staff.
This research in chapter two, however, identified a number of limitations in the by Ventura Health Agency and the Ventura County Library in their succession planning strategies. The limitations arise amidst a number of advantages that this study came up with. The study is of the view that the limitations outweigh the advantages when placed on a scale and that is why at the end of the report, the paper will be making a number of recommendations that are viewed as the solution to the limitations. The first limitation that this study identified was the fact that shareholder views and interests are not factored in when final decisions regarding succession planning are being made. This is a dangerous trend. In any organization that is composed of shareholders as among the stakeholders of the organization, their views and interests must also be put into consideration during decision making. It is against the wishes of good practices of corporate governance and best practices that the views of shareholders are not considered in decision making processes. In fact, shareholders have the right to petition the management of any organization in court when they feel that the decisions so made did not factor in their wishes and the court has the discretion to make a reasonable decision on the same. Shareholder views are usually collected during general meetings and therefore when these general meetings are not held by the organization in question, chances are that the views are also not factored in. this paper will be making a recommendation to this effect so that the process is seen as being free and fair.
The other limitation of the approach adopted by Ventura County in its succession planning initiatives essentially relates to risk analysis. Lack of risk analysis, as this paper postulated in chapter two, makes the succession planning process less comprehensive. An agency that is unable to assess and analyse possible risks and predict possible mitigating measures is doomed to fail. The presence of a detailed analysis of the risks that an organization is likely to face enables it to focus on the ways that will enable it to counter such risks. It also enables the agency to be focused on its goals because it is able to focus on what could be a barrier towards its success. In the case of Ventura County, it would have been good for it to have a comprehensive and a well detailed analysis of the possible risks that it could face in its endeavour to have a good succession plan. This would enable it to plan forward on how such risks could either be avoided or countered whenever they arise. This is because when risks are known, they are able to be handled in advance.
This study was also able to discover that the Ventura Library has not been able to have a detailed analysis of the present and future organizational needs, compared with the Ventura Health Care Agency. An organization that is able to focus on the present trend in the organizational development and use the trend to plan on the future always succeeds. An example of such a plan concerns change in technology. Any focused organization should be able to plan on how it will respond to any likely change in technology. An organization that began before the computer age must have found it hard to make it through the turbulent waters of the computer era because of its outdated systems. That is what is lacking in the Ventura Library and this paper seeks to clarify and suggest a remedial measure.
The people visiting the library would be happy to find the reading materials as readily as they seek them. This can only be made possible by the presence of a database that includes all reading materials in the library and all one needs is to log into the library system, search for a book or a journal article and they are able to find it without much struggle. This paper will be making recommendations to that effect.
The Ventura Health Care Agency, too, has a number of limitations in its approach to succession planning. Although its approach has more advantages as compared with its Library counterpart, it still faces a number of challenges that acts as drawbacks towards its success in the field. The first of those drawbacks is the fact that the plan does not define the qualifications that the people applying to succeed the current employees are supposed to possess. This lack of competency definition makes it almost impossible to have well-qualified people applying for the jobs. It also means that any person can still apply and get the job, regardless of their qualification or competencies. In any successful organization, agency or association of persons, the requirements regarding the qualifications of persons applying to fill some vacant positions must be explicitly defined and documented for everyone to see them. This information should also be included in the adverts that are aired to prospective applicants to enable them to make a decision as to whether they will apply or not, depending on their ability or inability to meet the requirements.
This paper also opined in chapter two that the Ventura Health Care Agency approach in succession planning lacks the important provision showing the process to be followed in order to ensure that there is transparency and accountability in the activities that are carried out in the agency. Lack of this provision puts the agency in a precarious position and makes it prone to abuse by the management because there is a general feeling that nobody is going to question their decisions even if they are fatally flawed. Lack of the provision also makes it possible for the management not to follow the due process of the law and this could be fatal for the success of the organization. The provisions of administrative law and procedure provide that every organization must make provisions to be followed when all public decisions are being made in order to make it easy and possible for the culprits to be brought to book. The same provision, it is observed goes to the protection of the integrity of the organization and is in essence beneficial.
Pasquerella, Killilea and Vicino (2009) are of the view that the inclusion of a procedure to be followed in case of lack of transparency and accountability makes all people equal and this is healthy for the success of the business. Transparency and accountability go hand in hand with material disclosure of all material facts regarding the activities of the members of the organization. Where there is material disclosure of material facts in the proceedings of a particular organization, and then there is transparency and accountability. In such a situation, every member of the organization feels safe and equal to the other members of the same organization. It is therefore important that such provisions are made available in the succession plan of the Ventura Health Care Agency.
This paper also mentioned in chapter two that the Ventura Health Care Agency plan does not factor in how various employees will be handled in case they are dismissed from their jobs while still actively employed. This lack of employee management strategies makes it difficult to either remunerate or reward those employees who have been in service for a long period of time and now they are either retiring or they are being dismissed from their jobs to create vacancy for other persons. Karlsson, Johansson, & Stough (2009) are of the opinion that organizations should have a clear-cut plan on how their employees should be dismissed, rewarded or remunerated and this usually happens when there is an employee who is either being dismissed from job or there is an employee who is retiring. Such arrangements are meant to save the organization ridicule and disappointment when a former employee has to sue the organization in court in search of compensation for the injuries suffered by them in case of unfair dismissal from the work place or lack of remuneration for the term they have been serving the organization. This usually has the effect of soiling the reputation of the organization.
The foregoing deal with the limitations in the succession planning processes for the Ventura Health Care Agency and the Ventura County Library. The recommendations as a result of this analysis shall be presented at the end of this paper. At this point, however, it is important to consider the findings of the comparative case studies discussed under chapter four of this paper and make a summative argument towards the same. This chapter started by stating that the theme is to review the previous chapters and make a summative argument of the findings of the comparative case studies and also the limitations of the approaches adopted by the two agencies in their succession planning strategies. The paper has to remain faithful to that proposition.
A detailed analysis of the results of the comparative case studies
This section will focus itself on the challenges that the Ventura Health Care Agency and the Ventura County Library face in an attempt to streamline the succession planning strategies. In some cases, the two agencies share some of the challenges but in other cases, the challenges faced by one agency are not a bother to the other agency. The library is the most affected by the challenges because there is a general feeling that its processes regarding strategic planning in the succession sector has not been well streamlined. It is therefore important to further interrogate these challenges, how they have affected the agency in particular and at the tail end of the analysis make some recommendations on the way forward.
The strategic plan of the Ventura County Library discloses numerous shortcoming in the ability of the management to adequately budget for the yearly activities that the agency takes part in. in any organization, there is the dire need for adequate planning of the amount of funds that the organization will require in order to adequately carry out the activities of the year and also a plan showing where the funds will be generated from. Lack of such a plan is the biggest drawback that the organization can face. This is because some of the projects that the organisation needs to carry out will stall due to lack of enough funds to expedite it.
This, in effect, will hamper the succession planning strategies that the agency engages itself in. Take, for example, Ventura County Library that intends to recruit people, yet it does not have enough money to pay them. Such an organization will likely lay off some employees due to lack of funds to remunerate them and this will be a big loss both to the organization and to the employees who had a lot of hope and had already secured their employment. Such an organization will also face court battles due to the unfair dismissals and will likely face a winding up order by the court.
The shame and agony of an organization facing a winding up order by the court due to its inability to pay its debts would detrimental to its own image as well as its integrity. It is, therefore, the position of this paper that it is important for the management to have good plans for its yearly budgetary allocations in order to avoid these budgetary failures occasioned by poor planning.
The other challenge that this study has identified is the stiff competition from the private sector. The private sector has increasingly began providing health services and also library services at a lower cost and the services so offered have been seen as being of a higher quality than those offered by the public sector. When this happens, the ball is always on weaker competitor’s court to ensure that they play safe lest they be kicked out of the field by the stronger competitor. The question that therefore arises concerns what the Ventura agencies are supposed to do in order to put up with the stiff competition that is arising from the private sector. The answer is always simple: the stakeholders must make sure that the services they render to the public through both agencies are of high quality. That will make sure that the consumers of their services do not run away in look out for better services and those they maintain them. This paper will be making a recommendation to this effect.
This stiff competition has the adverse effect of making it difficult for the Ventura County agencies to maintain their employees as their private sector counterparts do. It even gets worse when some employees shun the agencies and join the private sector in search of greener pastures. It is, therefore, critical that the Ventura agencies ensure that their services are improved in order to compete fairly for employees with the private sector or even to maintain their employees.
The biggest challenge, though, in this series of challenges is lack of support from the shareholders and the employees of both agencies. While these strategies have a direct influence on the shareholders and employees and they have been put in place for the good of the organization at large, most of these people look at the strategies with a lot of disdain and they do not support them. Some of them view the succession planning strategies as a plan to lay them off or even dismiss them and they therefore do not support them. It is this lack of support that has led to the strategies not succeeding as they should.
Recommendations:
Based on the findings of the comparative case studies, the results of the research of this paper, the challenges that the Ventura agencies face and the limitations of the approaches adopted by the agencies in their succession planning strategies, this section will make a number of recommendations that, if implemented, will ensure that the process of succession planning is streamlined.
- Shareholders should be involved in decision-making processes
The role played by shareholders in any organization cannot be underestimated. Their views should equally be factored in when the decisions concerning the affairs of the organization are being made. The views of shareholders are usually gathered during general meetings of the organization and therefore it is paramount that such meetings be held whenever they are supposed to be held. Failure to hold such meetings is a drawback to the affairs of the organization and as this paper posited earlier in the preceding sections, any shareholder may in such occasions petition the court to issue orders that have the effect of winding up the company.
For this reason, therefore, this paper recommends that the Ventura agencies must always take the views of the shareholders and the views include when the agencies intend to recruit any new workers into the organization. This is because the increment of employees has the effect of causing undue uneasiness to the existing employees and they may feel that the recruitment of the new employees could be a way of dismissing them. It is for this reason that the existing employees must also be involved in the process of recruiting successors of the positions that they hold in the organization.
- There should be proper risk management initiatives
One of the challenges that the Ventura agencies face is lack of proper risk management when planning for succession strategies. This has the effect of approaching the future without the proper initiatives to curb the emerging risks, challenges and financial difficulties. With proper risk management strategies, the agencies will be able to put the best foot forward when making any succession plans. The hallmark of a succession plan is to have employees who are able to fit well into the shoes of the former employees or even workhand in hand with the existing employees in order to ensure that the affairs of the organizations are taken care of in a good way. Where an organization does not plan well on the nature of the employees that it needs to have, then there arises a problem and the problem can only be attributed to lack of proper risk management initiatives.
The advantage of a proper risk management initiative is that the agencies will be able to predict possible risks and make proper arrangements to either prevent the risks from occurring or deal with them easily as they arise.
- The agencies should clearly state the qualifications and competencies of the employees that they need to have
One of the limitations of the Ventura County Agency approach to succession planning is that it does not provide for the qualifications and the competencies of the kind of personnel that the agency intends to recruit. This approach has the adverse effect of getting the wrong people to do the job and therefore beats the purpose for a succession planning strategy. It is therefore recommended in this paper that the agency should come out with the requisite competencies for the various positions that are supposed to be filled whenever there is a recruitment exercise. Such requirement sand competencies make it possible for the agency to recruit the most suitable persons for the jobs in question.
The qualifications and competencies also ensure that recruitment malpractices are minimized because only the best suited persons for the job appear for interviews and recruitment. It also ensures that the work of the human resource department is made simpler because the personnel will only be dealing with qualified persons in the recruitment exercise.
- There is the need for the agencies to have a budget for all activities of the year
The agencies must have a budget for the amount of money that they are going to spend during the succession planning exercise. The sources of the money should also be clearly stated in order to avoid any unnecessary problems when they run out of money yet there could be activities that need to be done. A good budget covers the whole financial year and states where the money shall be obtained from and also the activities that are to be carried out with the money. By so doing, the succession planning exercise will be streamlined.
- The agencies must study the emerging trend and put in place the requisite strategies
Since the trends in the human resource management systems keep changing year in year out, there is an increasing need for human resource managers in any organization to be abreast with these trends so that they reap the best from the change. Time may come when the strategy used in a particular year for the recruitment exercise of employees may not be the same strategy to be employed in a succeeding year. This therefore makes it compulsory for the managers to be in touch with these trends so that they are not left out.
- The services offered by the agencies must be improved in order to compete fairly with the private sector.
Lastly, this paper opines that due to the emerging stiff competition from the private sector over employees, the Ventura County agencies must ensure that the services they offer to their employees are of high quality in order to retain them or attract other employees from the private sector. When they do not do that, chances are that the employees will leave the county agency and join the private sector in a look-out for greener pastures.
Conclusion
This chapter has extensively reviewed the preceding chapters of this research paper and analysed the contentious issues raised therein. In particular, the chapter has tried to single out the limitations, challenges and drawbacks that the succession planning strategies employed by the county agencies have faced and finally made a number of recommendations that, if implemented, will be of great help to the county agencies. In conclusion, it is the view of this paper that if the recommendations made here are put in place, then the processes will be streamlined and the agencies will reap the best out of the strategies that will have been employed therein.
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