Succession planning is the process of identifying the critical positions within your organization and developing action plans for individuals to assume those positions. Taking a holistic view of current and future goals, this type of preparation ensures that you have the right people in the right jobs today and in the years to come. Show In the long term, succession planning strengthens the overall capability of the organization by:
A succession plan identifies future staffing needs and the people with the skills and potential to perform in these future roles. Professional & Organizational Development’s Succession Planning Toolkit will help guide you, though we strongly suggest you involve your assigned HR consultant and/or HR administrator in this process as well. ToolkitWe’ve broken succession planning down into three phases with clear steps, and the Succession Planning Toolkit (PDF) comprises a series of worksheets that move you through the succession planning process. Within this document, you’ll find templates and tips for:
Assessment phaseStep 1: Identify significant business challenges in the next 1–5 years. Step 2: Identify critical positions that will be needed to support business continuity. Step 3: Identify competencies, skills, and institutional knowledge that are critical success factors. Evaluation phaseStep 4: Consider high potential employees. Step 5: Select the competencies individuals will need to be successful in positions and to meet identified business challenges. Development phaseStep 6: Capture the knowledge that individuals possess before departing the organization. Step 7: Develop a pool of talent to step into critical positions through targeted career development strategies. There’s a world of upheaval on the horizon for business leaders. Back to work plans need to be devised, deployed and – depending on where your office is located – even delayed or re-devised. Ambitious transformation agendas that may have started pre-pandemic have been amplified in importance and accelerated through the pandemic. Your employees are mentally and physically exhausted and looking to their leaders for motivation and support. Your leaders are similarly exhausted. And the pandemic – that relentless presence in all our lives – shows no sign of abating.The pandemic has exposed pre-pandemic shortcomings in key talent management functions as they relate to leadership development and succession and is threatening a seismic shift in the leadership ranks of most companies. It is leading some individual leaders to choose earlier than planned retirement and exposing others as bad fits for current and future challenges. At the same time, employee surveys show clearly that your top talent – the broad constituency within your workforce from which you often pluck the next generation of leaders – are either actively looking for other opportunities or are being aggressively recruited by other organizations. These circumstances have highlighted two significant succession challenges. First, do you have the right leaders in place to step up on an emergency basis if critical roles become vacant through unplanned temporary or permanent departures? When were the plans last reviewed and do they allow for business continuity? Second, how much long-term succession planning have you done to identify and groom talent for planned departures? In other words, do you have the bench strength to fill those critical roles – possibly a lot sooner than expected? Is your succession planning forward-focused, factoring in whether your identified talent embraces the skills and behaviours that define fit-for-future leadership, or are they just echoes of the leaders who are making way? Layer on top of that, have you paid sufficient attention to diversity and inclusion in building your bench strength? That’s a very long shopping list of needs and shortcomings and, as most businesspeople know, there isn’t always enough time to cover all your bases when it comes to talent management. But one step you simply cannot leave out is a careful assessment of your organizational bench strength and succession planning. Do you have the people to fill critical roles, and do they have the skills to lead into the future? The following mini-quiz won’t give you a roadmap to a comprehensive succession plan, but it should help you expose areas of immediate need.
The pandemic and other societal impacts that have coalesced have taken a huge toll on business leaders. So much so, that it’s very hard to foresee the full impact it’s going to have on individuals who may be in desperate need of respite or a change. Organizations that build broad succession plans that account for both long-term and short-term departures will be well served well into the future. Planning ahead allows you to achieve full value from existing leadership bench strength, and support them with targeted recruitment of external talent when necessary. It’s the difference between a state or organizational readiness and having to apply knee-jerk solutions to key talent decisions. What is succession planning process?Succession planning is the process of identifying the critical positions within your organization and developing action plans for individuals to assume those positions.
Is succession planning an ongoing process?Succession planning, on the other hand, is an ongoing process of identifying, developing and retaining future leaders and knowledge experts who will eventually move into critical roles, at all levels.
What are the types of sucession planning?5 types of succession plans. Selling your business to a co-owner. ... . Passing your business on to an heir. ... . Selling your business to a key employee. ... . Selling your business to an outside party. ... . Selling your shares back to the company.. What are the four stages of succession planning?There are 4 stages of succession planning: implementing a software solution, assessing key roles, identifying employees with the skills and potential, and creating and implementing development plans.
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