I get asked a lot by my clients to help them plan for the future. As an HR Business Partner at Helios HR, my job is to work with senior management teams to plan for the unexpected. To help them continuously move their human capital forward successfully. Sometimes, these organizations that want to plan for the future just want to mitigate their risk of an employee leaving the organization. So this got me thinking, what is the true difference between succession planning versus replacement planning?

A change in your senior management team can be an interesting time for your organization. The change can either go one of two ways: it can be a smooth process where a new leader comes in and helps steer your company to new heights or it can turn into a disaster where the position is open for months at a time and you end up rushing to fill the role. By rushing to fill the role, the organization hires someone who ends up not being a fit. Fast forward one and a half or two years later and that position has turned over again. You are right back where you were 24 months prior and your organization is a little worse than it was previously and the position is still open.

According to a recent Gallup study, 71% of our workforce is probably not nearly as productive as they could be. The number of actively disengaged employees in the workplace outnumbered the number of actively engaged employees by nearly two to one. And in the North America, 29% are engaged, 54% not engaged, and 19% are actively not engaged, meaning they are “unhappy and unproductive at work and liable to spread negativity to coworkers.”

At Helios, we are often asked to recommend how to best structure an organization’s HR Department. You may have heard the rule of thumb is 1 HR professional for every 100 employees. Unfortunately, it is not that simple and there is no “one size fits all” solution. There are a lot of factors that go into determining the right solution for your organization.

Do you have a message to deliver to your employees that may be tough for them to hear? How will you communicate the message in the most effective, genuine way? Sometimes it is necessary to deliver a message that will be difficult for your employees to hear, whether it is regarding negative financial reports, an acquisition, a change in leadership or even pending layoffs. How do you go about delivering this tough message?

I recently interviewed a prospective Human Resources Manager candidate and asked what one of her current challenges was. She gave an answer that included an example of two direct reports who once were the best of friends, but are now archenemies and have brought their issues with them to the workplace. In the industry that she is in, she explained that this is common behavior and that it often lands her in the position of being a mediator.