Succession
planning to be a process by which one or more successors are identified for key
posts (or groups of similar key posts), and career moves and / or development
activities are planned for these successors. Successors may be fairly ready to
do the job (short-term successors) or seen as having longer-term potential
(long-term successors). Succession planning therefore sits inside a very much
wider set of re-sourcing and development processes which we might call
succession management.
This
encompasses the management re-sourcing strategy, aggregate analysis of demand /
supply (human resource planning and auditing), skills analysis, the job filling
process, and management development (including graduate and high flyer
programmes). Organisations use succession planning to achieve a number of
objectives including:
o Improved job filling for key positions through broader candidate
search, and faster decisions.
o Active development of longer-term successors through ensuring
their careers progress, and engineering the range of work experiences they need
for the future
o Auditing the ‘talent pool’ of the organisation and thereby
influencing, resourceing and development strategies
o Fostering a corporate culture through developing a group of people
who are seen as a ‘corporate resource’ and who share key skills, experiences
and values seen as important to the future of the organisation. Of these, it is
the active development of a strong ‘talent pool’ for the future which is now
seen as the most important. Increasingly, this is also seen as vital to the
attraction and retention of the ‘best’ people.
Typical
activities covered by succession planning include:
o Identifying possible successors
o Challenging and enriching succession plans through discussion of
people and posts
o Agreeing job (or job group) successors and development plans for
individuals
o Analysis of the gaps or surpluses revealed by the planning process
o Review, i.e. checking the actual pattern of job filling and
whether planned individual development has taken place.
