Succession planning

Succession planning is not simply about discovering people for top leadership positions; it is the process for identifying and developing internal people with the potential to fill key leadership positions in an organisation: effective management of succession involves building a pipeline of employees ready to step into various key job roles throughout an organization.

In uncertain economic times, organisations need a pipeline of well-trained and motivated staff ready to move into key roles when the opportunity arises.

Those organisations that plan for succession:

•Have a clear strategic understanding of their future roles and skills requirements

•Share information across the different Human Resources functions and business as a whole to feed the management succession plan

•Understand where talent lies within an organization

•Look broadly and creatively at how to distribute internal talent in order to achieve the best person-job fit

•Have a clear view of who is in line to replace people that hold key company positions.

In many companies, over the past several years, the emphasis has shifted from planning job assignments to development, with much greater focus on managing key experiences that are critical to growing global business leaders. North American companies tend to be more active in this regard, followed by European and Latin American countries.

Assessment is a key practice in effective succession planning. There is no widely accepted formula for evaluating the future potential of leaders, but there are many tools and approaches that continue to be used today, ranging from personality and cognitive testing to team-based interviewing and simulations and other assessment center methods. 

Succession planning is an ongoing, dynamic process that helps an organization to align its business goals and its human capital needs. It also ensures that an enterprise can keep pace with changes to the business, industry, and overall marketplace. To achieve outstanding results using succession planning, an organization must develop an effective and highly focused strategy that centers on organizational excellence.

Today, many organizations strive to identify key objectives and business goals and shape a work-force accordingly. Although executives and senior managers play a crucial role in defining such organizations, there is a need for specific skills and competencies throughout the enterprise. Not only does succession planning serve as a way to create an organizational hierarchy, but it can also help organizations conduct an inventory of human capital and better understand gaps. It can also help organizations manage change in a more holistic way.

It is often difficult to plan for the unimaginable. Yet, the sudden resignation, illness or bereavement of a key executive can reverberate throughout an organization, paralyzing both management and staff and impeding the organization’s ability to execute its business plan. Unfortunately, diseases, automobile accidents, plane crashes, and other disasters are an ongoing reality. Although it is not feasible to plan for every possible scenario, and particularly for the loss of several key leaders at the same time, it is entirely realistic to map out a chain of command and understand who will assume control if and when a key executive is lost. Recent world events illustrate how important succession planning is when unforeseen acquiescence and disasters can negatively impact an organization both internally and externally.

Organizations that reach their full human potential are more likely to succeed in today’s competitive environment. However, many organizations lack effective systems and processes to do so. In most organizations, there is little formal succession planning, and excellent internal candidates are often overlooked when openings occur. As a result, organizations not only lose valuable talent, they miss opportunities to leverage the business potential of their emotional economies.