Succession Planning Best Practices - Part II

Bradley Savoy February 27, 2008

Research across many world-class organizations has shown that implementation of these best practices will enable a company to achieve its goals for a succession management program.

Leadership development
• Create specific, individual development plans for each employee. The development should be simple for the employee to follow, and easy for human resources to monitor.
• Offer a combination of approaches for development: mentoring, coaching, rotational programs, external training, university education, and even internally designed executive education programs.
Talent Planning
• Utilize a set of core competencies or behaviors to establish a standard of comparison across talent. These competencies act as a basis for performance management and identification of high potential employees.
• Used consistently, talent planning should include an identification process to identify and develop future leaders.
• Establish a set of core competencies for leadership and succession management that employees will be measured against.

Technology
• Technology plays an essential role in succession management. Technology acts as a vehicle to facilitate the process rather than becoming the focus. Technology can enable change, but if viewed as the overall solution without strategic process improvement, it can become an inhibitor.

Ensuring Success - Monitoring and Assessment
• Leading organizations ensure succession management is an integral, on-going process linked to the business strategy.
• The human resources function is typically responsible for creation and selection of the processes and tools needed for succession management. Business executives act as champions and own responsibility for the use of the system to manage their staffing needs. Through this collaborative partnership, a comprehensive, scalable process is created.
• Utilize tools such as Scorecards, metrics dashboards, or succession management criteria as part of executive’s performance plans.

Recommendations for Success
• Align the succession management strategy with the business strategy. Executives are more likely to support a system that reinforces business goals and objectives.
• Secure senior level executive support. Little success will be achieved without the support and endorsement of executive management. Senior executives are will continue to provide support when the succession management program gives their strategies a higher probability of success.
• Keep it logical, and simple. The succession management process should be logical to the various stakeholders and simple to use. Ensure that there is little bureaucracy, and that busy executives are not overly burdened by the process.
• Utilize technology to enable the process. Near real time data and reduction of time in managed the succession management system are primary contributions of technology.
• Establish a succession management advisory board. This board should act as the adviser to the C-level stakeholders of the organization and reflect the concerns and needs of business executives.

Succession management is a journey, not a destination; since developing leadership talent is a long-term investment. Succession management requires an ongoing commitment of executives, HR, and succession management specialists. Collaboration amongst these stakeholders creates a virtual cycle of success.

The key to succession management is creating a match between the organization’s future needs and the aspirations of its people. Creation and execution of a successful succession management program will ensure that the attraction and retention of leaders continues to act as a strategic driver of an organization’s competitive advantage.

Posted in Human Resources, Recruiting, Workforce Planning, Workforce Management