Succession planning is a process that identifies and prepares employees for key roles as current role holders retire or move on. It ensures the organization has backups in place and does not experience disruptions. Senior executives regularly review top performers to assess their abilities and decide who would be suitable replacements. Succession planning saves costs over external hires, reduces attrition, and allows for identifying and grooming internal talent over time. However, over-reliance on successors can stifle new ideas and sometimes outside hires are preferable to fresh perspectives. Overall, succession planning provides continuity and development opportunities within an organization.
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In today's era of stiff competition a big organization needs to have a
capable leader who takes the organization ahead and ensures that its
long-term goals are fulfilled. But this does not end here for obvious
reasons.
Depending on one man alone can often be dangerous and thus a
backup is required. This is where succession planning comes to the
rescue for it ensures that the organization does not come to a standstill
and there is always someone to take it forward.
This is why succession planning is an on going process and senior
executives review the performance of their top executives and those in
the next lower level on a regular basis to have a look at their work and
decide on who the right person would be.
4. Meaning
In organizational development, succession planning is the
process of identifying and preparing suitable employees
through mentoring, training and job rotation, to replace key
players — such as the chief executive officer (CEO) —
within an organization as their terms expire. From the risk
management aspect, provisions are made in case no
suitable internal candidates are available to replace the loss
of any key person. It is usual for an organization to insure
the key person so that funds are available if she or he dies
and these funds can be used by the business to cope with
the problems before a suitable replacement is found or
developed.
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DEFINITION: Process of identifying and preparing suitable
employees, through mentoring, training and job rotation, to
replace key managers within an organization
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Succession Planning involves having senior executives
periodically review their top executives and those in the
next lower level to determine several backups for each
senior position. This is important because it often takes
years of grooming to develop effective senior managers.
There is a critical shortage in companies of middle and top
leaders for the next five years. Organizations will need to
create pools of candidates with high leadership potential.
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A careful and considered plan of action ensures the least
possible disruption to the person’s responsibilities and
therefore the organization’s effectiveness. Examples
include such a person who is:
suddenly and unexpectedly unable or unwilling to continue
their role within the organization;
accepting an approach from another organization or
external opportunity which will terminate or lessen their
value to the current organization;
.
8.
indicating the conclusion of a contract or time-limited
project; or
moving to another position and different set of
responsibilities within the organization.
A succession plan clearly sets out the factors to be taken
into account and the process to be followed in relation to
retaining or replacing the person
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10. Activities included in SP
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Analysis of the demand
Audit for existing executives
Planning for individual career paths
Career counseling undertaken
Accelerated promotions
Performance related training
11. Succession planning: Pros and
cons
Saves money:
One of the biggest advantages of succession planning is the
savings factor, which actually adds up to a sizable amount if one
takes into account the cost of hiring an outsider, his training and
the time lost in bringing him up to the same level of
productivity. “Succession planning not only saves on hiring
costs, but also on the opportunity cost that is involved in hiring
and training the new incumbent
Reduces Atrrition:
The best answer to counter the problem of attrition is succession
Planning
12.
Identifying and Grooming :
one of the strongest reasons in favour of implementing
a succession planning strategy remains that the
process of identifying and grooming the right talent to
ably take over the leadership responsibility, is an
achievement which few organisations can boast of.
13.
Employee turnover in any company is a given and today,
there are huge costs involved in hiring an external back-up.
Succession planning is a cost effective tool
Today, there is a clear talent crunch in certain leadership
positions in the market in India. So hiring from outside is
not only cost consuming but also very difficult for certain
functions or industries
14.
A lot of multinationals today are looking to buy out the
notice period of their prospective employees. Thus if you
lose an employee, there is a very good possibility that he
may not serve his entire notice period. Having succession
planning in place will save you the opportunity loss created
from a vacant position
A successor is usually a known devil
15. Disadvantages
Have come across a lot of candidates who quit their jobs
because his/her peer is now his/her boss
If succession planning is not done well, it could land up
promoting an incompetent person to a role and in the
bargain run the risk of losing other team members
Sometimes it helps to get fresh blood from outside the
company in the role. A successor more or less will have
the same ideas and approach as the predecessor and this
may not always be good
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SUCCESSION PLANNING
Our company has extensive experience in helping
companies create, implement and continue succession
plans to ensure a predictable supply of the talent required
for key positions and critical to human resource
management. General steps involve:
Identification of need through retirements, turnover,
growth, etc.
Identify success characteristics for position or category of
position, using the steps below:
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T-A-S-K
Traits: Deep-seated characteristics of the individual.
(These are best selected rather than developed. Examples
are: Drive and initiative; psychological stability and
integrity; agile and self-directed learner.)
Abilities: Clusters of discrete skills. (Examples are: Leads
and participates in teams effectively; organizes self and
others.)
18.
Skills: Specific, demonstrable result-producing
actions. (Can be seen and assessed through
observation. An example would be probing for
resistance as a sales skill.)
Knowledge: Broad, organized and accessible
information relative to a topic area. (An example
would be: knows Federal, State, Local and
Company environment laws and policies.)
19.
Categories to use in describing the Traits-Abilities-SkillsKnowledge desired are:
Technical or Professional; product, industry, customer,
competitor knowledge.
General Business Knowledge; budgeting, project
planning, etc.
Company Knowledge; policies, procedures, regulatory
requirements, systems and politics.
People Skills, Work Habits, Relationships and
Managing People.
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Assess internal candidates against established criteria.
Create development plans where appropriate.
Manage development activities using primarily on-the-job
assignments.
Be positioned to place the "right" person in the "right"
position based on clear knowledge of the candidate's
potential and readiness.
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22. Conclusion
The purpose of succession planning s to help he individual in
achieving developmental objectives by setting milestones at
different levels along career development.