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Talent News

Succession Planning – Part 3

Succession Planning - Part 3

Thursday 18th January 2018

How can we invest in our existing talent?
Investing in our existing talent often requires a cultural change - it can mean altering ingrained attitudes from long-standing members of senior staff. Keeping people in stalemate job situations because they have the monopoly of skills and knowledge to fulfil that role effectively is not acceptable. Having an individual who can fulfil a specific skill is an asset to a manager but keeping them in that role because the prospect of re-training someone to do something which no one else appears to be able to do or want to do - is not the answer. Give that individual a time frame i.e. three months to re-train the prospective candidate and write a standard SOP, upon completion they can be promoted or undergo training to begin a new job role or this can happen in parallel during the transitional period.

A high flyer can be talent spotted for one-step progression and or a two / three-step progression move within a few months and should be internally promoted because they have proven their capabilities time and time again.

Apprenticeships - age is but a number:
A sensible way to do succession planning is utilising the Apprenticeship Levy, all UK employers who have a total employee pay bill above £3m a year will pay the Levy. This includes public and private sector, charities and educational providers such as academy groups and universities. The Levy rate was set at 0.5% of your pay bill in the November 2015 Comprehensive Spending Review.
Your 'pay bill' is your total employee earnings subject to Class 1 secondary NICs.
Employers get a £15,000 fixed annual allowance to offset against the Levy payment. Employers who operate multiple payrolls are able to claim one allowance for the Levy.
An example: if you have a £3m pay bill, you have a Levy bill of £15,000 (at 0.5% of employer pay bill). The allowance is offset against this so your Levy payment is £0.00.

An apprenticeship was traditionally associated with young people but this is no longer the case it is a journey - from being a novice in a role to becoming an expert.
"Apprenticeships should be expansive, and focus on developing the whole person for a job, a career (and other careers), and for life. Going beyond that, an apprenticeship will instil a sense of curiosity, lifelong learning, discovery and improvement in all apprentices."
(http://www.apprenticeshipguide.co.uk/adult-apprenticeships/)

For the apprentice, paid employment with a higher chance of securing a job at the end of the apprenticeship with qualifications and experience to enable them to fulfil procurement roles in:
• assistant buyers
• assistant contract officers
• contracts analysts
• stock/inventory controller/planner
"I passionately believe that Apprenticeships are a real option for everyone post 16." Chris Starling, Head of Apprenticeships, Virgin Media.