Filling critical positions in any organisation is never easy. Not only do you need to hire great talent, you need to retain talent. Ambitious candidates will always choose to work with an employer committed to their professional development. It’s why retaining and developing talent should be at the heart of your ongoing people strategy.
It’s smart to spot, develop and promote the talent you already have. Whatever the size of your business, employees will leave, move departments or progress into new roles. Having someone in the wings ready to step up will minimise disruption and make sure knowledge isn’t lost. Just as importantly, it will build your reputation as an organisation that values and supports people with potential and gives them opportunities to grow.
What is succession planning?
Succession planning prepares rising talent for key roles. This is vital for business planning and continuity. Done well, it means that when change happens, everything continues to operate smoothly.
But it’s not just about replacing people who leave. You may want to prepare someone for a role that doesn’t exist yet, but which will be crucial to the company’s future plans. For instance, you may be planning to expand overseas and know you’ll need sales leaders capable of driving international development. Or you could need to create a new HR role to handle international functions.
All too often though, businesses put succession planning on the back burner when they should make it an operational priority
5 key steps to creating a great succession plan
1. Set up a working group to define goals and strategy
Make sure it includes the people who drive decisions or who thoroughly understand how the business works. HR and the leadership team are obvious candidates.
Then task this group with defining your current and future business goals. These might include:
- Your gross revenue target
- Your five and ten-year plan
- Expansion into different locations
- Headcount targets
2. Identify business-critical roles
Once you’ve agreed the goals, create the people-centric strategy that will help you achieve them. Let’s say your goal is to be the market leader in five years. The strategy will need to define the roles that will make sure you get there.
Often, these will be senior management and leadership roles. They may be existing roles you’d need to fill quickly if the current holder moved on or retired. Or they could be roles that are still to be created.
Be sure to include:
- Roles where you currently have a skills shortage
- Emerging skills you’ll need more of in the future
- Roles held by leaders or decision-makers preparing for retirement
- Key positions that are held by just one member of staff
- Positions that are hard to fill, even if they’re not decision-making ones.
3. Pinpoint the skills and experience needed for each priority role
Once you’ve mapped out your key positions, pin down the crucial skills, must have knowledge, experience, values and cultural fit needed to thrive in them – both now and in the future.
Stick to a structured process throughout. HR teams often use a competency framework similar to those they use when assessing employees for promotion. Your succession framework could include some general leadership skills as well as skills specific to the role itself. Psychometric profiling could also be useful in some places.
Here are some criteria your framework might include:
- Leadership potential
- Interpersonal skills
- Expertise with software
- Alignment with business values and mission
- Levels of motivation
- Sales ability
- Management skills
4. Identify likely successors for each role
Remember, you’re not looking for the finished product. You’re in search of talented people who show great promise and align with your goals for growth. So look for potential rather than just at those who are ‘second in command’. There may be talent further down the pipeline that, with the right development, is better suited to the demands of the role.
Your competency framework will help you carefully assess each candidate’s background, experience, cultural fit and career plans. And, of course, many candidates will have already built strong relationships with other employees and have in-depth knowledge of both your industry and your business. They’re also likely to have worked closely with or been mentored by the person who’s leaving.
5. Build succession aims into their development
Building your succession planning aims into an employee’s development plan encourages them to continuously grow in the right direction. Whether their ongoing training takes the form of on-the-job experience, executive coaching, mentoring or continued education/qualifications, be sure to use performance reviews to track progress. These reviews can be annual, bi-annual or, if you’re aiming to accelerate progression, even quarterly.
Development like this is essential for talent management and staff retention. Investing in it will give your employees the skills to excel in critical roles and help your business grow.
Top Tips
Plan ahead: Succession planning can take as much as ten years to come to fruition. Don’t leave it until the last minute.
Give practical experience: Find opportunities for candidates to step into their future position. If the senior worker goes on annual leave, delegate responsibilities to their successor.
Review the plan regularly: As your business evolves, it’s likely your business plan will need to evolve with it. So keep it flexible.
Think creatively: Don’t automatically assume you need to replace like with like. For instance, if you need to replace a leaver, would it be better to divide their role up among several other positions.
Don’t promise anything: Be sure to remind aspiring successors that there are no guarantees. Plans can change. But reassure them that, if there are any changes, you’ll be completely transparent.
Unleashing the power of succession planning
Strong succession planning can not only prepare your business for the future, but it should also be a core component of your talent attraction strategy. Employers will always need to bring new people with fresh experience, key skills, and different perspectives into their business. In a competitive hiring environment, ambitious candidates will always opt for an employer committed to their professional development.
Focus on the goals your business has for the next 5 to 10 years and think broadly about the roles and skills you need if it’s to achieve them. Always remember that succession planning is an open-ended process. It should be fluid and constantly reviewed and adjusted to accommodate the inevitable, change.