Retirements put succession planning in spotlight at Prince George City Hall

“The reality is we all struggle a little bit in filling senior roles,” Camp said. “The level of experience, the type of experience you have is difficult to replicate out of those positions.”

But he said organizations can lessen the impact of senior departures by planning for them well in advance.

“You want a succession plan in place,” Camp said. “You want some idea as to what steps you’re going to take if somebody leaves a position either expectedly or unexpectedly.”

That means developing people within an organization who may one day be able to step into more senior positions.

Camp said employers can use developmental assignments, special projects and job shadowing to prepare employees for greater responsibility. Ideally, he said, an organization identifies several people at different management levels who could eventually move up.

When an internal candidate is not available, however, the municipality may have to look outside the organization. And attracting an experienced senior manager involves more than compensation.

Camp said prospective candidates are likely to examine the relationship between elected officials and municipal administration before deciding whether to take a job.

“With a municipal government position, it’s like, well, it’s the relationship between the mayor, the council and the administrative positions within it, the non-political,” he said.

Potential candidates will want to know whether they will be able to make meaningful operational decisions, Camp said, or whether they will be micromanaged.

“They understand strategy. They understand leadership development,” he said of a well-functioning council. “They’re getting input and they’re helping build policy that will guide management action. But managers will still have control over their operational responsibilities.”

Support from elected officials is also important.

Camp said candidates may look at whether a municipality has a history of developing and retaining managers and why a senior position has become vacant in the first place.

For Prince George, its size could also work to its advantage. Camp said a senior employee from a smaller municipality might view Prince George as a logical next step in building a career toward eventually working in a larger centre.

The two planned retirements come as questions are also being raised about whether the new council could contemplate broader changes at City Hall.

Council held a special meeting closed to the public over the weekend. According to the information provided for the meeting, council was permitted to discuss matters involving personal information about an identifiable individual who holds or is being considered for a municipal position, labour or other employee relations, and advice protected by solicitor-client privilege.

Those provisions identify the legal reasons council was permitted to meet privately. They do not, on their own, establish what decisions, if any, were made behind closed doors.

Asked whether the new council has a goal of trimming from the top, Councillor Trudy Klassen said she could not discuss what occurred during the closed meeting.

“I’m not sure that that’s a goal,” Klassen said. “And of course, I can’t talk about our closed council meeting.”

She did, however, point to the messages voters heard during the recent municipal election.

“I think if you look at the campaigns for the councillors that won, that were elected by the people, there’s very much an appetite for change and maybe seeing how we can do better,” she said.

Klassen said she is particularly interested in how the city spends taxpayers’ money and whether decisions made now account for longer-term costs.

“I am really eager to see how we can make sure that the money that we spend is well spent and that we are frugal and forward looking,” she said.

Any significant organizational restructuring can itself carry a price tag, particularly if senior employees leave involuntarily.

Klassen acknowledged that councils sometimes face choices that can cost money immediately or create expenses down the road.

“There’s always decisions that council have to make that sometimes cost money up front or later,” she said.

Looking back at previous city decisions, Klassen said some costs might have been lower had different choices been made, but deciding the best course is ultimately the responsibility of the council of the day.

If changes are made, she said the public will learn about them when that information can be released.

“New councils have different ideas about how to do things,” Klassen said. “And we have a great city manager and I’m sure things will work out very well.”

The potential cost of changes at the senior level can be difficult to calculate because severance is highly dependent on individual circumstances.

Camp said length of service is often an important factor, particularly when an employee is being asked to leave rather than departing voluntarily.

“Often you’re looking at how long they’ve been in service,” Camp said, adding that the calculation can consider an employee’s entire time with the municipality and not simply the years spent in their current position.

He described roughly one month of salary per year of service as a possible starting rule of thumb, while cautioning that actual severance can vary considerably.

Age, seniority, prospects of obtaining comparable employment and the circumstances surrounding a departure can all affect the final amount, he said. Negotiations or legal disputes can increase costs further.

But regardless of who ultimately occupies the senior offices at City Hall, Camp said the relationship between administration and elected officials will be critical.

Council’s job is to set strategy and policy, he said, while allowing professional managers enough authority to carry out the municipality’s day-to-day work.

With two veteran directors already headed for retirement, that relationship, and the city’s ability to develop or attract their successors, could become an important early test for the new council.

by Cheryl Jahn

Retirements put succession planning in spotlight at Prince George City Hall

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