Succession planning is an essential strategy for ensuring the long-term success and resilience of any organization. It involves identifying and developing internal talent to step into critical roles as they become available. Unlike traditional planning methods, modern succession planning focuses on creating a proactive roadmap for success, enabling businesses to thrive even amidst change. This article explores the key elements of succession planning and how integrating skills development can future-proof your workforce.

Why succession planning matters?

Succession planning is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity in today’s business landscape. Organizations face challenges such as employee turnover, technological advancements, and evolving roles. Without a plan, businesses risk operational disruptions and loss of knowledge when key employees leave.

Succession planning goes beyond merely replacing roles. It aligns employee skills and aspirations with organizational needs, ensuring that every role—current and future—supports long-term business goals.

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So, what is succession planning?

Succession planning is exactly what it says on the tin. For every leadership or key staff position in your business, you need to have some idea of who you’ll promote. It’s often imperative to get these high importance roles filled quickly, and the only way you’ll do that is with succession planning. After all, you might lose key HR personnel, and suddenly, nobody’s getting paid.

Or if the person in charge of marketing gets head-hunted by another company just before Christmas, your ad campaign for the first quarter of the New Year might not roll out on time.

While the best plan may sometimes be to hire externally, it’s often a good idea to up-skill staff when feasible.

Not only does taking on new staff open you up to additional hiring costs, but refusing to promote from within can also breed resentment in your most career-minded workers.

Whatever you decide to do, having a plan in place enables you to manage turnover in senior positions, unexpected or otherwise, before it adversely affects the business.

Core elements of succession planning

Succession planning can involve a variety of steps and processes, but above all, the core intentions include:

  1. Identify critical roles: Start by pinpointing roles that are vital to your organization’s success. This often includes leadership positions but can also involve specialized technical or process-oriented roles.
  2. Assess current talent: Conduct a thorough skills inventory to understand the strengths and gaps within your workforce. Our eBook on skills development emphasizes the importance of tracking both technical and human skills, such as communication, leadership, and adaptability.
  3. Create learning pathways: Establish tailored development plans that help employees grow into future roles. Encourage upskilling, reskilling, and cross-skilling to prepare your workforce for emerging challenges.
  4. Engage employees: Foster open communication about career aspirations and provide opportunities for employees to explore their potential. When employees feel aligned with your vision, they’re more likely to stay engaged and committed.
  5. Implement continuous review: Succession planning is a dynamic process. Regularly revisit your plan to adapt to new business goals, technologies, and market conditions.

5 steps to start with succession planning

Now that you understand the elements of succession planning, it’s time to go over the essentials. Although your plan should be swift in its execution, it’s vital not to rush the planning stage. This is why we really can’t put a strong enough emphasis on the importance of succession planning well in advance of it becoming an issue.

Assemble a team to create a succession plan

Due to the importance of succession planning, it’s definitely worth getting a breadth of perspective. You should bring your senior-most leaders (or for much smaller businesses with few leadership roles, a selection of your most distinguished employees) to help you make these decisions. Having a team to plan with helps you make the smartest decisions, because they may offer insight about aspects of the business you’ve overlooked, or they might have good candidates in mind for internal promotion when the time comes.

What’s the reason for your plan?

You need to figure out which positions hold enough importance to need a succession plan. As we’ve said, this should include your top leaders, and any specialists that you employ. At this stage, you should consider the factors that will require you to fill positions. Maybe one of your senior managers is set to retire soon, or someone in your industry is known to be head-hunting promising talent. But your succession plan might not have anything to do with turnover at all. Perhaps your company is thriving, and you’re planning to open a new branch. Understanding the reasons behind your plan is essential for making the most appropriate decisions going forward.

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Identify issues that will affect your plan

There are plenty of factors that can influence your succession plan. Practical concerns like hiring costs might determine how likely you are to fill the position externally. Then there are changes to workplace culture that happen over time, which you’ll need to consider. You might want to hire or promote someone who has experience with a target market you’d like to move into, or perhaps you want team leaders who will promote a culture of feedback in the workplace.

Connect your succession plan to business objectives

Along with the issues you identified in the last step, your business objectives are the other major determining factor. It should go without saying that the aim of your succession plan should be to promptly fill vacant positions with people who can help the business to grow and develop.

Create a functional action plan and follow it through

Finally, the most important step! The objectives of succession planning include identifying positions that need suitable replacements lined up, creating a short-list of potential candidates for internal transfer or promotion, as well as considering the costs and suitability of external hiring. If up-skilling is required for an employee to fill the role, you’ll need to ensure that they have access to the proper training and development opportunities, so as to up-skill into the position successfully.

Unlock human potential: Get your free guide to skill management

Effective skill management is key to unlocking employee potential and driving organizational success. Our free Book, “Unlock employee skills: Your guide to creating thriving teams,” is your cheat-sheet for developing a strong skill management process and ensuring your teams are equipped to thrive.

Download your free copy below to start building resilient, successful teams ready for the challenges of the future!