Succession planning allows you to prepare for the possibility that a position will be left unfilled for a period of time. This can happen due to leave of absence, sabbatical, winning the lottery, or any kind of attrition. There are two ways to address succession planning – Emergency and Development.
Emergency succession planning happens when someone is out of the office unexpectedly, either permanently or for a considerable amount of time. Ask each of your leaders to select one person they believe can do their job to at least 75% success. These employees are usually peers and make great emergency successors.
Development succession planning is when you develop hi-potentials to eventually take over a specific role. This begins in the talent review process where leaders look at upcoming potential, discuss development needs, and select successors for their roles. Those hi-potentials are then developed in identified areas via leadership development programs, on-the-job experiences, and/or rotational programs. These employees become the talent pool for the next level of leadership.
Both types of succession planning are important for your organization. The benefits of identifying successors include:
- Have people “ready to go” if you need to backfill a critical role or have an interim leader, no downtime trying to find “replacements”
- Internal promotions versus hiring externally saves the organization money and allows you to keep your culture
- Provides stability in leadership and other critical positions to sustain high-performance and ensure uninterrupted delivery of services
- Allows targeted training and development to ensure you are building the proper skills in your employees
- Helps individuals realize their career plans and aspirations within the organization
- Improves employee engagement and regretted attrition
- Creates opportunity for institutional knowledge transfer
- Allows you to be future-focused and maintain brand identity
How can we help you build for what’s next?