Future-Ready Talent: Building Your Bench Through Mentorship, Sponsorship & Succession Planning

Screenshot of nine people on a virtual Teams meeting

Developing future-ready talent isn’t accidental – it's strategic.

In today’s fast-paced economy, organizations face a rapidly shifting landscape driven by technological advancements, evolving skill requirements, and demographic transitions. To remain competitive, leaders must reconsider how they approach talent pipelines. Rather than asking "Who can we hire?" when a vacancy opens, forward-thinking organizations ask "Who are we intentionally developing right now?"

During the September session of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) Workforce Wednesday series, leaders gathered to discuss how strong mentorship, intentional sponsorship, and thoughtful succession planning shape a workforce that is prepared for today and ready for tomorrow.

Facilitated by Becky Zoubek, South Central and Southeast Minnesota Workforce Strategy Consultant, the session featured practical insights from four employer leaders from companies operating in southern Minnesota:

Marcy Watzl, Manager of Talent at Red Wing Shoe Company (Red Wing)
Emily Harrison, Plant Manager at ADM (Red Wing)
Phil Sayles, HR Manager at Viracon (Owatonna)
Jennifer Ungaro, HR Manager at Crown Cork & Seal (Owatonna)

Here is a breakdown of how the strategies these leaders shared during the session work together to build a resilient, adaptable workforce—and how you can apply them within your own organization.

1. Defining the Core Practices: Mentorship, Sponsorship, and Succession Planning

While mentorship, sponsorship and succession planning are closely related, they serve distinct purposes in an internal talent pipeline:

Mentorship Builds Capability: Mentors provide guidance, share institutional knowledge and help employees navigate the organization. Mentorship can be formal or informal, but its primary focus is growing the individual.
Sponsorship Creates Opportunity: Sponsors go beyond offering advice, they actively advocate for talent. A sponsor recommends an employee for high-visibility projects, introduces them to senior leadership and advocates for them in talent discussions when the employee isn't in the room.
Succession Planning Ensures Continuity: Succession planning aligns individual development with organizational goals. It is a future-oriented process that identifies critical roles and capabilities, preparing talent to step into greater responsibility over time.

Key Takeaway: Succession planning is not pre-selection or a guarantee of a future promotion; it is preparation. It ensures your organization builds sufficient bench strength to remain agile during transitions.

Strategy	Primary Goal	Focus	Action
Mentorship	Build Capability	Growth & Guidance	Sharing knowledge, coaching, and navigating the workplace.
Sponsorship	Create Opportunity	Visibility & Advocacy	Opening doors, recommending for projects, advocating in key meetings.
Succession Planning	Ensure Continuity	Future Readiness	Mapping critical roles, cross-training, and preparing talent pipelines.

2. Why Internal Talent Development Matters Right Now

Employers across all sectors are navigating retention challenges, knowledge transfer risks, and shrinking pools of specialized external talent. Panelists highlighted four key drivers making internal development a strategic imperative:

Preserving Institutional Memory: Decades of specialized technical knowledge and workplace relationships leave when experienced employees retire. Structured development passes this expertise along before it walks out the door.
Adapting to Technical Skill Gaps: As machinery, automation and operational technologies evolve, external candidates with exact skill sets become harder to find. Organizations must build these capabilities internally.
Boosting Retention Through Visibility: Employees want clear career paths. If growth feels opaque or reliant on chance, top talent looks elsewhere. Showing clear pathways reinforces that employees matter and that advancement is possible.
Accelerating Role Readiness: Preparing talent before a vacancy occurs prevents operational downtime, especially in 24/7 manufacturing environments where key roles directly impact production schedules.

3. Real-World Strategies from Southern Minnesota Employers

During the panel discussion, business leaders on the panel shared how they operationalize mentorship, cross-training and succession planning within their facilities.

Aligning Competencies and Career Maps (Red Wing Shoe Company)

To make career growth clear and actionable, Red Wing Shoe Company established a framework called Strategic Talent Alignment. The company utilizes competency models and career development maps alongside a 70-20-10 development model (70% experiential learning, 20% social learning/mentorship, and 10% formal training).

"Career development maps help make growth visible and less mysterious," shared Marcy Watzl. "If an employee sees a stretch assignment as a tool for their own career development, rather than just extra work, they are far more invested in taking ownership."

Structured Apprenticeships & Skill Progressions (ADM)

At ADM’s processing facility in Red Wing, frontline maintenance roles require specialized skill sets that are rarely taught in traditional academic settings. ADM designed a defined multi-year progression program that pairs formal coursework with targeted hands-on pairings.

"We focus on pairing colleagues in training with the right partners during daily operations," explained Emily Harrison. "Making sure they get hands-on experience across a variety of equipment builds real capability over a two-to-three-year window."

Employee Ownership & Creative Coverage (Viracon)

At Viracon, succession planning is integrated directly into annual performance reviews, establishing clear development plans for every role while putting the employee in the driver's seat.

"Every employee owns their own development, and the employer's role is to support that pathway and remove barriers," said Phil Sayles. Sayles noted that scheduling conflicts are often the largest barrier to development. To solve this, Viracon leverages cross-coverage during paid family leave and offers overtime training opportunities during off-days to help employees shadow higher-level roles.

Expedited Onboarding & Intentional Outreach (Crown Cork & Seal)

Faced with increased product demand in a 24/7 environment, Crown Cork & Seal focused on streamlining training structures to safely bring technical operators up to speed faster.

"It takes time to build specialized technical skills," noted Jennifer Ungaro. "We are focused on structured training while opening direct lines of communication to ask employees what actually interests them, so we can align our training resources with their career goals."

4. Actionable Steps to Strengthen Your Talent Pipeline

Building a sustainable talent bench starts with simple, intentional practices:

Identify Critical Knowledge Risks: Evaluate which roles, specialized skills or key stakeholder relationships would cause the greatest operational disruption if lost tomorrow.
Make Career Pathways Visible: Outline clear behavioral competencies and skill steps required for advancement so employees understand how to grow within your company.
Embed Experiential Learning: Use job shadowing, cross-training, shift coverage and stretch assignments to build hands-on experience before a critical vacancy opens.
Encourage Active Advocacy: Train leaders to look beyond immediate team needs and actively advocate for promising talent across the broader organization.

By connecting mentorship, sponsorship and succession planning into a unified culture of growth, employers can build an adaptable, resilient workforce equipped for whatever comes next.