The Company
Motorola, Inc is an electronic and wireless communications company based in Illinois, United States of America. In 1998 it had 142,000 employees and an annual turnover of $27 billion.

The Results
Through the use of various initiatives including succession planning Motorola has significantly improved the outcomes for women in its organisation.

One measure that illustrates this is the number of female vice presidents. In 1989 Motorola had two female vice presidents. In 1997, six years after the modification of Motorola's succession planning so that it incorporated the company's diversity objectives and sought to accelerate the advancement of women and minorities within the organisation, Motorola had forty female vice presidents, including seven women of colour.

How was this achieved?

Reason for change
In the late 1980s due to changing demographics in its workforce, Motorola began to redesign its established succession planning process to make the development of women and minorities a priority. This process culminated in 1991 with Motorola's succession planning process, known as the Organisation and Management Development Review (OMDR) being amended to include diversity objectives.

Setting of goals and commitment
As part of the amendment to the OMDR Motorola set a clear goal: within ten years the number of women and minorities at all levels of management should be representative of the number of women and minorities in the available talent pool. They also made a commitment that every year at least three women and minorities would be among the twenty to forty people appointed vice-president.

The program
Motorola's OMDR guarantees that women and minorities, as well as white men are not only identified as high potential managers but also that they move along through the organisation.

The process of identification of 'high potentials' requires each division to submit lists of candidates in four categories: white men, women, minorities and technical staff. Career development plans are prepared for each high potential and their progress through the company is then 'tracked'. If they leave or fall of the list in the future, the individual's manager must explain why this happened.

To counter the perception that most women and minorities are still in the 'feeder pool', a replacement chart that identifies key positions and three people who could fill each one was developed.

• Line one is the immediate successor.
• Line two is the person who should success the incumbent if the company had three to five years to prepare.
• Line three is the most qualified woman or minority candidate at that time, in addition to any women or minority person already on line one or two. Women and minorities must be included even if it means hiring externally.

Other key elements of the Motorola program include:

• Career Planning: Individuals receive guidance to set career goals and develop strategies through which to achieve them. Guidance is given by:
• Managers helping employees they are responsible for who are involved in succession planning, to plot a career course.
• Informal mentoring. Senior management are encouraged to seek out opportunities to mentor women and minorities.
• The company's women's leadership conference.

Business Rationale: Motorola promoted the link between the succession planning initiative and the company's business goals of pursuing quality, productivity, new markets and profits. Emphasis was placed on the business success that can flow from having a socially diverse workforce.

Leadership Role: The Chief Executive championed the initiative. Presidents of major operational areas develop plans for meeting diversity goals. They report quarterly on the progress of these plans to the Chief Executive. The managers and Chief Executive then meet once a year to discuss the progress of the initiative.

Accountability
Motorola sees diversity as a business initiative and as such line managers not the HR department should be responsible for its implementation. Senior managers are required to keep track of and report on the representation of women and minorities in their units.

Key messages

• Clearly define targets and goals. Setting a time frame and numbers creates impetus for action.
• Have a broad definition of succession planning to include the widest talent pool.
• Ensure that women and minorities are not only identified, but that once identified that they are among those being groomed for senior positions. It is never too early to begin: As one Motorola's vice president stated, it is important to get the feeder people on the 'radar'. Once they are on the 'radar' more questions are asked about their development and it is harder for them to be lost within the organisation. Organisations cannot wait for women to 'appear' in management.
• Implement careful and strategic planning for targeted individuals' career development. Being identified is not enough. Consider potential benefits of encouraging informal mentoring.
• Ensure there is strong leadership and commitment from senior management. Initial and on-going personal involvement of the Chief Executive is crucial to success.
• Integrate succession planning into business and diversity objectives. A clear link between business goals and the desired results of the succession planning will assist in gaining commitment from the organisation and staff. To be successful it must be portrayed as a core issue.
• Make managers accountable for the success of the initiative. As it is a business initiative, business people should be responsible and accountable for its delivery.

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