How to Use the IDP Tool to Aid Successor Development?

After identifying successors within the organization, the next challenge is to develop them to reach their full potential and become future leaders.

To achieve this goal, it is essential to closely monitor employees and create specific action plans to put them in challenging situations that contribute to their professional growth.

Within Qulture Rocks, the IDP tool provides an interesting solution for monitoring identified successors.

✏️ About the IDP Tool

To access it, employees can find the corresponding icon in the left corner of the platform's home screen.

Within the tool, employees have the option to create development areas they consider essential to progress in their careers. The process involves identifying the competencies and skills necessary for their next professional steps. See the example:

Next, employees define specific actions that will help them develop in the chosen area. Each action can be assigned a corresponding type and must have a defined completion date.

Once action plans are created, employees and their managers jointly monitor the progress and achievement of established objectives. This can be done on the screen displaying the created development areas, as illustrated below:

If you want to learn more about the IDP tool, you can consult our other articles on this product at this link.

💡 How Successor Learning Happens during the IPD

The main goal of creating a specific IDP for a successor is to prepare them to take on more complex levels of activities over time compared to their current responsibilities. This implies that the employee will need to learn a series of new activities and skills they do not currently possess.

The learning process during the IDP can occur in diverse and non-homogeneous ways. Therefore, it is important to consider the different learning processes the employee may encounter:

🟣 Understanding the importance of development: Often, employees do not adequately develop themselves for the new role because they do not understand the real need to do so. They may believe that their current way of performing tasks is sufficient to assume the new position. In this sense, it is the manager's responsibility to create actions that raise awareness in the employee about the importance of continuous improvement and enable a more critical and distant view of their own work.

🟣 Acquiring knowledge and skills through training: It is important for the employee to be exposed to more traditional learning methods, such as participating in courses and training. This allows them to engage with more structured and well-supported knowledge.

🟣 Putting it into practice: The employee needs to experience what they have learned during their journey to becoming a successor. This practical experience is essential to consolidate their knowledge about the new role and understand the main challenges involved. The manager plays a crucial role in this process, acting as the employee's guide during this journey of applying in practice what has been learned, which allows for constant course corrections and prevents the repetition of certain execution errors.

🟣 Sharing experiences: Putting the employee in environments where they can share their learnings with others facing similar situations creates a conducive environment for innovation. It also provides a sense of emotional security to the employee, as they meet peers who are experiencing similar situations and share mistakes and successes similarly. This environment fosters an enriching and collaborative learning process.

How to Structure the IPD for Successors? 🤔

After understanding the mechanisms for developing successors and preparing them for greater responsibilities, it is essential to set an objective path for the employee to achieve this goal.

To do this, it is necessary to clearly define the development areas the employee needs to enhance and create the necessary action plans.

Considering the main challenges a successor may face during their development journey, we can think of 4 major development areas to focus on:

🟣 Solving more complex problems: The employee needs to be constantly exposed to more complex problems than they are accustomed to. This will allow them to become familiar with challenging situations and develop the necessary skills for the new position. Some examples of action plans for this area are:

• Engaging them in a challenge they have not yet faced;

• Exposing the employee to a different audience than they are used to;

• Encouraging the study of knowledge areas they are not familiar with.

🟣 Expanding the systemic view of the company: It is common for the employee designated as a successor to have a limited view of the company, focused only on internal and specific area issues. Therefore, it is important to provide experiences that broaden their understanding of the organization as a whole. Some specific action plans can help them in this path:

• Participation or coordination of projects with other areas;

• Receiving mentorship from a reference leader from another area to solve a complex situation.

🟣 Expanding the network of relationships: As a successor to a key position in the company, the employee needs to build internal and external relationships to ensure teams' needs are met and promote a constant exchange of information. Some action plans for this development area are:

• Assigning them to represent the company in meetings with clients and other stakeholders;

• Involving them in projects with other leaders from related areas.

🟣 Sharing Experiences: The successor must become a reference in sharing learnings within their team, while also receiving knowledge from more experienced individuals. For this, they need to be involved in situations that allow them to exercise the role of both sharing and receiving knowledge. Some action plans that can be executed are:

• Involving the successor in discussion groups with top executives of the company and clients;

• Organizing learning sharing groups among their peers and subordinates.

By structuring the IDP for successors with a focus on these development areas, the company will be preparing its employees to take on leadership positions and contribute significantly to the growth and success of the organization.

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