Succession planning at the ministry of forests and range: A focus on developing an effective formal mentoring program

This study examined the Succession Planning initiative at the BC Ministry of Forests and Range (MOFR), with a focus on developing an effective formal mentoring program. Using a change audit approach, the researchers examined work completed to date and interviewed Succession Planning team members and other project stakeholders, with the purpose of assessing the initiative against 8 key change project success criteria. Individual research in Mentoring, Visioning and Succession Planning also provided the MOFR with some further recommendations, with the in-depth assessment of the Mentoring program presented in this paper. Results of the audit indicated that while the MOFR's change initiative had some strengths, there are some key recommendations for improvement in all 8 dimensions. Additional improvements included succession mapping, stock flowcharting, communications strategy, stakeholder analysis, training and development, performance measures, vacancy chains and a pilot project. The research on mentoring resulted in some recommendations for developing a formal mentoring program.