How to Effectively Undertake Succession Planning
A key element of succession planning in business is ensuring that everything is in place for a seamless transfer of leadership from one generation to the next. Without proper planning, an organization may need to recruit leaders from outside the business, which can come at a cost that is both tangible and intangible.
Being Clear on the Roles that Need to Be Filled
It’s important to be very clear about the specific role or roles that need to be filled, role requirements, and the elements that are important for the business to be successful going forward. This can be achieved by interviewing the strongest incumbents, asking their bosses for input and being as inclusive as possible.
Engage Stakeholders
Engaging senior leaders and other stakeholders in the succession planning process is crucial. It’s a good idea to conduct interviews with these individuals, while also inviting them to participate in surveys, attend focus groups and provide additional input as necessary. As well as ensuring buy-in, this is an effective way of generating ideas to make the entire process run more smoothly.
Looking to the Long Term
Estate planning experts such as Dr Edgar Paltzer recognize that forecasting the needs of an organization’s workforce over the long-term is another important step in succession planning. To this end, mobilization factors should be considered that pertain to every relevant individual and level of management. Such factors include retirement plans, employee satisfaction and engagement trends, voluntary and involuntary turnover patterns, compensation strategies and competitiveness, and management training and readiness.
Recognize and Incentivize Leaders Who Develop Others
Ideally, the more individuals that have been developed for other roles within the organization, the better. It is good practice to link succession planning readiness results to the skills of managers in developing others. It can be useful to offer incentives to this end and create a link to performance evaluation goals.
Annual Talent Assessments
Succession planning should be viewed as a fluid process, rather than a static event, that is constantly evolving and changing. Reviewing an organization’s talent on a regular basis is considered to be best practice and will ensure that the succession plan isn’t at risk of becoming outdated. Validated assessment tools, like 360-degree feedback, can be used as part of the process of assessing talent and ensuring role requirements can be met.
For more information about best practice when it comes to succession planning, take a look at the embedded PDF.
