Best Practices in Guidance for Workforce Transition and Succession Planning

Public sector transportation agencies and the contractors who help them do their work will have a major challenge in meeting their workforce needs for the foreseeable future. By some estimates, the aging of the baby boom generation could allow up to fifty percent of the total workforce to retire within the next ten years. Overall demographic issues and stagnant enrollments in science and math professional programs, traditionally the major sources of new hires into the transportation industry, will make finding adequate qualified recruits difficult. This project deals with strategies for transition planning—in particular, strategies for transition planning in a specialist organization such as the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s Rail and Harbor Section.