How to create a great succession plan

Succession planning is a strategic progress in which candidates are identified and developed within an organisation, so they are fully equipped to step into a key role when a leader leaves.

Research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, highlighted in a recently published whitepaper from recruitment experts MorePeople, revealed huge variations in how far ahead businesses look when planning and taking action on current and future workforce requirements.

As many as 30% don’t look beyond six months, while 17% plan more than 3 years in advance. A total of 31% of businesses collect data to spot skill gaps and 28% to identify retention issues. Fewer collect data to forecast hiring demands or assess availability of talent in the market at 21% and 16% respectively.

By having a succession plan in place, you are not only holding onto valuable knowledge, but building in more resilience to your business should a key senior leader suddenly depart.

Recruiting and onboarding external leaders can also be expensive. By having someone internal step up to the plate, you may be able to save on recruitment and training costs.  

In addition, knowing there are opportunities for career progression can be a great way to hold onto employees and enhance engagement and demonstrate organisational preparedness to key stakeholders.

Planning your succession plan

When it comes to identifying those key positions, MorePeople says the first step is to ask yourself a few crucial questions.

These include queries such as:

• Is this role likely to be vacant soon due to retirement or impending promotion?’
• If this role became vacant, would it impact daily operations immediately?
• Does this role require specialist skills or knowledge’ – consider if it’s a system build by or operated by only one person that has training.

When it comes to finding the right potential successors, a business will want to roll-out mechanisms such as performance reviews, personality profiling, and consider not just the candidate’s skills but whether an individual is able to effectively line manage people.

If you can’t identify what you need, you may wish to look at recruitment strategies to bring in the kind of talent you require.

Once you have identified or recruited the high potential employees, encourage them to seek leadership opportunities, taking on roles that provide them with practical experience.

While we all would like a quick fix, the whitepaper highlights that overall timeframes and plans for successful succession strategies don’t come overnight, with ideally businesses factoring in a minimum of 3-5 years.