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HR: Employee Engagement: 7 Steps for effective Succession Planning
Succession planning constitutes a powerful process aiming at upskilling and reskilling employees by recruiting and developing to fill each key role within the company.
Through succession planning, organizations recruit skilful employees, develop their knowledge, and competencies, and prepare them to advance or be promoted into more challenging roles internally. This process may also include transfers to different departments or job shadowing, in order to allow them to observe various jobs in action.
Many business leaders and HR Professionals believe that succession planning is a complex process adopted mainly by large organizations. However, research has shown that it can be a powerful tool that can be implemented in smaller companies with fewer and less sophisticated departments and practices.
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Key benefits of succession planning include protecting the business from potential and unforeseen changes and challenges, increase employees’ engagement and retention of top talent through an action plan and individual learning opportunities.
Depending on the organization’s culture, certain obstacles or barriers to a succession planning program may occur. Consider them when planning and designing the stages:
- Resistance to change: Start small, creating a success smart story in order to build rapport, credibility and agreement.
- Lack of support from influencers: Identify the resistant forces, finding the root of their scepticism and reduce their worries by presenting facts and figures.
- Lack of time: Consider the amount of time spent on recruiting, selecting, and training new employees. Compared with these time-consuming activities, time invested in succession planning prepares the employee for a wider array of responsibilities and tasks within the corporation.
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7 steps for effective Succession Planning:
1. Create a proposal showing executives the flow of the succession planning and its benefits for the organization. Start with a pilot program before implementing into the whole organization.
2. Develop a measurable and shared action plan. Define the goal smart, measure and share progress regularly. Compare the results with the succession planning goals established at the beginning of the process.
3. Align the program with the business objectives. When selecting job functions for the program and methods for the transfer of learning, ensure that they are aligned with the organization’s practices and business strategic goals.
4. Evaluate employees’ competencies for core values and key strengths using different assessment tools measuring not only personality, but also behavioural and cultural competencies. This will help organizations identify skill gaps and training needs.
5. Identify top talent and high performing employees, and establish talent pools by levels based on the strategic strengths of the organization in the entry level positions, midcareer and senior positions. Identify what key positions may become vacant in the near future: Which employees are about to retire? Which employees are pregnant? What type of resources will be needed for the recruitment process?
6. Create an action plan based on the results identified and a tailored program, helping employees work and share knowledge across departments. Through succession planning, that sharing of knowledge and experiences can occur between the employee and the potential successor, giving the latter the unique opportunity to uncover key skills and improve their competencies.
7. Use a combination of techniques. Offer employees a coach or mentor to develop their skills, help them accelerate their growth and equip them for future roles and responsibilities. Include other learning activities including: classroom training, case studies, cross-cultural training or job enrichment.
8. Promote a long-term view. Encourage teams and leaders to build a vision and reinforce the concept of preparation and development.
About the author:
Adelina Stefan – Career Coach, Intercultural Facilitator & Executive Consultant
Adelina is a licensed Career Coach and Intercultural Facilitator specialized in the areas of International Human Resource Management and Intercultural Communication. She helps expats professionals achieve clarity in their career goals, enabling them to increase their self- and intercultural awareness and formulate their unique career blueprint. Adelina is a dual citizen of Greece and Romania, and has lived in Zürich, Switzerland for the last five years. Holding a Master Degree in Sociolinguistics and Intercultural Communication, she also specializes in translations and interpreting, being fluent in English, Greek, Romanian and German.
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