Here's Why You Should Never Delay Succession Planning

Any organisation should have a succession plan, regardless of size. It could be even more significant for a smaller organisation, where one key staff leaving can be especially disruptive.

However, succession planning isn't just about having an employee available to fill the gap when a position becomes open. In a fast-moving and unpredictable world, businesses need to have a strong team of talent lined up, ready and waiting to carry the company through change or help turn their plans for growth into reality.

Before you get started, here are the key issues you need to consider for succession planning:

Start small.

A formal succession planning can be overwhelming. The solution is to start slowly and methodically by focusing on no more than ten essential people and positions.

Remember that you will need to be planning for at least three or more potential successors for each job, which means building profiles for more than 30 employees. Focus on the priority positions, and once you've got the process right, you can move out to a wider range of roles.

It pays to have a succession plan, especially if you want your company to survive in the long run.

Take a strategic approach.

Now, think about where your industry is going, what the leadership team's vision is and what key skills are likely to be required to support it.

Are you working in a specialist area where talent is highly valued?
How hard would it be to find candidates who have the specific skill set you will need in the future?

Next, you should audit the employees and skills you already have in-house.

Which positions are most crucial for business continuity?
Which employee has the potential to step into those roles?
How prepared are they?
If they are not prepared, what further development and experience would they need?

Once you have answered all the questions, you will be ready to start discussions and put the right strategies in place.

Talk to the line managers.

Line managers can unwittingly sabotage the succession process. If a line manager has a talented employee, who's delivering great results for their department, it's just common sense to want to hold onto them.

But suppose your succession plan is to provide the good. In that case, you need managers to share information about their best employees and supporting career moves into other areas.

It would be wise to encourage managers to bring skill-oriented employees to the future of the business into their teams. Making good talent management a KPI for department heads, or even providing incentives for good practice, is a great way to push the sort of behaviours you want to encourage.

The best succession planning guarantees the future of your company.

Talk to people

One of the biggest mistakes organisations make is putting employees on a succession plan without any idea of what their aspirations or goals may be.

You might think you have the ideal person to step into a senior role. But, if it turns out they have no interest in the job, are planning to move abroad or start-up their consultancy, your plan goes down the drain.

Performance appraisals provide a great chance for managers to have open and honest conversations with their employees about where they see their careers going and what they would like their next move to be.

If the resulting information is recorded, you can put it into the succession planning process and decrease the chance of the business being caught unaware.

Source: Cezanne

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