Previously, we acknowledged the appealing benefits of succession planning. Surprisingly, most companies do not have an actionable process to select the successors or even if they do have, it is hardly executed smoothly.
A common mistake that organisations usually make is detaching succession planning from other human resources management activities such as recruitment, performance management or development. You want a strong talent pipeline with competent people, but you cannot just wish for it. Instead, you need to acknowledge the correlation between succession planning and stages in the employee cycle to get the big picture.
We present to you a concrete four-phase succession planning process. But instead of digging into the details of each phase, here are the FAQs you need to know about this model.
Four-phase succession planning process: Identification
Which positions should be incorporated into your succession plan?
Tough question. For sure, it’s not just C-level positions, but key positions that have critical influence on the organisation both operationally and strategically.
Generally, they might be middle management positions that anchor the connection between executives and lower-level employees. The following figure suggests some aspects to consider when selecting key positions.
Read more:A Dilemma in Leadership Development: Performance vs. Potential
Figure: Indicators to identify key positions
Source: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
Who should be considered as participants in succession planning?
They are “Potentials”, who don’t need to be immediately ready to take charge of higher-level positions, nor to possess enough skills and knowledge right from the start.
Why “Potentials”?
We look for “Potentials”, aiming to gradually nurture and build a rich pool of competent choices for long-term development. Your substitutes should be as competent as their predecessors, but you also need to focus on enhancing bench strength to ensure substitutes are always available.
Four-phase succession planning process: Assessment
What should be assessed in this phase?
Potential and Performance are the two elements to be examined in this model.
Why break down the Assessment phase into two parts?
Breaking down the assessment phase helps show how succession planning should be aligned with other stages of the employee cycle, particularly performance management and training & development.
Preparing necessary elements for these stages, such as a concrete-built competency framework or a clear and compact set of KPIs for each key position, is advised if you want to assess the “Potentials” you have identified in the previous stage, about whether or not they make it to the next stage.
Read more:360-degree Feedback: Did You Do It Right?
What are the difficulties in assessing performance, and what is the solution?
For performance, which is mainly evaluated by performance appraisals, the difficulty lies in the lack of data to assess or even the unavailability of effective indicators (aka KPIs). A few points to build KPIs and they all come down to the formula:
Appropriate quantity – Actionable – Alignment.
How about assessing Potential?
For Potential, the issue is its ambiguity. What is potential? How can you measure potential? You have to break down the term “potential” into different components and tackle each of them with your available tools.
Figure 2: Aspects of potential to assess
Source: “Why Your Leadership Development Programme Fails” webinar, TRG International, 2016
Four-phase succession planning process: Development
How to consolidate and utilise data gathered from Assessment phase?
Based on the assessment, you are able to put your “Potentials” into respective boxes in the 9-Box matrix. This mapping helps you find out how to deal with each case, and along with other data gathered from the Assessment phase, you and the “Potentials” finally come up with a plan to shrink development gaps between them and the key positions’ requirements.
How to execute training and development plans effectively?
Implementing that Leadership Development Programme (LDP) means you are executing the Development phase of succession planning. To maximise the impact of LDP, some of the points worth noticing are:
- Clarify the responsibility and benefits of the “Potentials” i.e. “What’s in it for me?”
- Diversify learning and training methods
- Align the course of action with development and business goals.
There’s a trend to apply technology in human resources management. Does this do anything helpful for succession planning?
You should leverage technology to make it convenient for your “Potentials” to learn. An online learning management system is a good choice, as you can recommend and track the learning progress of the “Potentials” while they have the autonomy to choose courses and ensure that their learning aligns with the predefined development plan.
Four-phase succession planning process: Management
Who should be involved in succession planning apart from HR and the selected employees?
Don’t assume that HR holds accountability of succession planning. They might come up with all the plan, necessary tools and methods, but they need the involvement from the managers to get a clear view of the current situation from within, especially in this Management phase, which is about appraising the progress, encouraging active participation and evaluating the programme.
Read more:The 4-Step Guide on How To Measure Corporate Training Effectiveness
Is there any suggestion on responsibility division between HR and the managers?
It’s too easy to say “That’s someone else’s problem” in this busy work world with different personal priorities and pressure. To prevent this case, HR department might consider the following actions:
- Engaging managers in analyzing and building key position profiles
- Engaging managers in setting up criteria to assess and refreshing after each year
- Communicating their roles in SP
- Including succession goals in their KPIs and providing necessary training or knowledge sharing on how to perform well in succession tasks.
How to measure the impact of succession planning?
Succession plan is a combination of different phases, thus, the final result should be drawn from the evaluation of each phase. A recommendation for organisations is to adapt the concept of Balanced Scorecard with each perspective representing an important aspect to be measured.
Figure 3: Adapting Balanced Scorecard concept to measure succession planning
Source: Effective succession planning, William J. Rothwell (2015)
A succession plan, as demonstrated by this model, is compact. But in fact, it involves all stages of the employee cycle: from recruiting employees who are well aligned with the company culture and values, to managing and developing them to achieve their goals and the business goals. That says, organisations wanting to execute a succession plan effectively need to be precise in each phase. One error or a loose link can cause damage to the output of the whole chain.
Next time, it’s no longer an FAQ but a survival guide on how to avoid certain myths that could lead your succession plan to a fatal outcome.
Need help identifying your highest potential talents for your detailed succession plans? Check out our series of psychometric-based assessments from Great People Inside!
