Gone are the days of the loyal employee who stays at a company until retirement. You knew they were leaving and you had or should have had a backup person. Today, life and businesses are rapidly changing. All companies at every stage need a plan, a succession plan.Succession planning is the process of mapping key roles and skills within an organization and identifying and developing workers to take on critical positions when team members transition out of the team. This approach comes into play when workers leave the organization for any number of reasons, such as resignation, termination, retirement, a leave of absence, or illness. Succession planning may also be needed in anticipation of workers moving to another team or receiving internal promotions.
Effective succession planning requires supporting workers so they can make successful career transitions and taking proactive steps to minimize lost productivity when a worker leaves their role; which can happen at any and every level
While some companies may focus succession planning primarily on back filling senior leadership or executive roles, the most impactful succession plans prioritize cross-training and development opportunities at all levels across an organization. By taking a proactive, ongoing approach to developing team members, your organization can more efficiently identify and fill any skills gaps you may have by building a pipeline of talent for key roles.
Who benefits from effective succession planning?
Companies without succession planning in place risk a decline in productivity and business performance. At the same time, individuals staying in the team may end up overworked or with a lack of insight into how team responsibilities should shift when a leader or other team member exits the company. Organizations of all sizes and across industries, as well as individual workers, can benefit from strategic succession planning.
Some benefits for organizations include:
- Identifying current and future skills needs, along with a plan to efficiently fill skills gaps
- Supporting business resilience by preparing for unexpected team changes
- Ensuring effective operational processes and knowledge transfer
- Maintaining company knowledge after a team member departs
- Reducing costs by minimizing lost productivity
- Maintaining a positive brand reputation
- Building a culture of ongoing training and development, which can drive team member engagement
A few ways individuals can benefit from succession planning include:
- Understanding the company’s commitment to business resilience and change management
- Avoiding burnout from an expanded scope of work when team members exit
- Learning new skills to future proof their careers
- Gaining confidence in their job security and role at the company
- Receiving clarity about opportunities for internal mobility and advancement
Who should succession plans be created for?
In an ideal scenario, a succession plan should be created for every role at an organization. Each time a team member leaves, company knowledge walks out the door and your team risks lost productivity. However, creating and managing individual succession plans can be challenging to scale—especially at large organizations.
Every position throughout the company must have a procedures guide detailing everything that is done in that position and it should be updated yearly This will be helpful during a transition
Training and development resources should be offered to all team members with succession planning in mind, so workers can continually learn new skills and better prepare to take on new roles in the future. Cross training is an imperative.
Why succession planning and talent management.
Talent management is an ongoing, strategic process that involves attracting, on-boarding, developing, retaining, and transitioning workers to achieve strategic business objectives. Because workers are essential to long-term business success, talent management is a top priority for companies of all sizes and across industries. Succession planning is a subset that focuses on the strategic aspect of talent management. It analyzes each position for its vulnerability and need for back up then evaluates the bench strength and career paths
The succession planning process ties in with many other aspects of the talent management process, including development and retention. Effective development and retention are needed to ensure existing workers are prepared to take on new roles across the organization.
70% of hiring decision-makers surveyed would prefer to train current employees for different roles before bringing on new workers.
While an effective succession plan is a key element of any impactful business strategy, many organizations don’t have a formal succession plan in place and may be unsure of where to start with developing one.
Consider the following tips as you develop or improve your organization’s succession plan.
1. Establish clear and concise objectives
Each time you develop a succession plan for a specific role, you’ll want to establish clear, defined objectives to ensure the plan is successful.
As you develop succession objectives, consider the following questions:
- How does this role impact overall business goals?
- Which skills and competencies are required for the role?
- Have business goals or in-demand skills changed since this individual joined the team?
- How likely is the current worker in this role to leave?
- What company or process-related knowledge does the individual possess and how can it be shared or documented?
- Does the individual have close client or other external relationships that will need to be transitioned?
- What will the transition timeline look like?
- Which development resources are available to prepare potential successors?
- Are additional training or development resources needed to maximize workers’ potential?
- Which existing team members are ready or have the potential to take on the role?
- Does the team need to consider external talent for the role?
2. Consider immediate and long-term strategies
Succession plan needs and timelines vary, from replacing a team member who has to immediately step down to planning ahead if an employee intends to retire in a few years.
Depending on the scenario and role, outline both immediate and long-term strategies. An immediate strategy for an urgent executive departure may include appointing a successor in an interim capacity, while they continue to refine their skills and take on the role permanently. Another option may be enlisting another leader at the company to temporarily manage the team while an internal successor prepares to take over or an external replacement is found.
Long-term succession planning offers more flexibility for a strategic approach and worker development. . If a critical team member knows they will leave in several months or a year or two down the road, they can be involved in mentoring and training potential successors. Development programs and resources can also be identified to build workers’ skills over time and prepare for the transition.
In addition to identifying and developing successors, another option to consider is shifting your organizational structure. For example, if a leader steps down and your business objectives have changed since they joined the organization, it may make sense to elevate the leader of another team to oversee two combined teams in a more strategic capacity. This can be effective for teams that already work in close partnership, such as product and engineering or sales and customer success.
3. Draft your succession plan
Developing and implementing a company wide succession plan can help your organization better prepare for any team member transitions you may face. Once your succession plan is in place, consider updating the plan annually as part of overall business planning and leave room for updates as needed throughout the year.
Some details to consider highlighting for each role in your succession plan include:
- Job title
- Current team member in the role
- Risk of the team member leaving
- Job description (or, at least a high-level bulleted list of responsibilities)
- List of required skills
- Direct reports (if applicable)
- Shortlist of potential internal candidates
- Readiness score for each potential successor
- Development options and timeline to improve readiness scores
4. Transition team members as needed and measure performance
While successful companies hope to retain top performers long term, succession plans provide insurance and ease team member transitions when the time comes. When an individual leaves their role, select the worker from your team who is the best-fit successor, based on the criteria from your succession plan.
While existing team members are already familiar with your company’s structure, culture, and processes, treat the initial transition period similar to onboarding. Make sure to provide relevant training, introductory meetings, and other resources as needed to achieve key objectives.
Each time a team member transitions internally, also measure performance to ensure your succession plan is driving results. For example, if a worker moves into a sales leadership position, hold them accountable to meeting revenue goals and managing individual team members to reach their sales targets.
If results fall short at first, provide coaching and additional support. However, if the transition takes longer than expected and doesn’t meet expectations, it may be time to reevaluate your decision and the overall succession plan.
6. Develop and assess workers regularly
Even if your team doesn’t have immediate succession needs, talent development is foundational to ensuring your long-term approach to succession planning is effective. As skills and talent needs evolve, continually developing and assessing workers can help your organization be better prepared to fill gaps when the need arises. As an added benefit, developing team members can help improve worker engagement and retention.
When measuring the effectiveness of your succession plan, also take qualitative feedback into consideration. For example, if your organization facilitates engagement surveys, workers may share open-ended feedback about your on-boarding and knowledge transfer process or talent development opportunities. Workers may also share similar feedback related to development and internal growth processes during exit interviews when they leave the organization.
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