What is Succession Planning in Human Resources?

Talented workers are an essential resource for the business to operate successfully. However, hiring people for key positions is full of obstacles. According to the Society for Human Resource Management report, a hiring process takes 36 days on average. We are sure you know from the experience that filling crucial positions might take months.

HR specialists use succession planning to provide the company with employees ready to take an opening position and bring fruitful outcomes.

A Succession Plan Definition

Succession planning involves identifying employees who can take over certain positions within the company in case of promotion, retirement, or another displacement of those who held the position before. The succession plan also includes strategies for developing key skills for potential successors required for the position.

Growing successors for paramount roles allows companies to smoothly pass on the leadership, strengthen corporate culture and save effort in searching for proper candidates in the labor market.

Succession Planning Model: 6 Steps

The succession planning process depends on your company size and the objectives your management poses. Usually, the goal is to provide a seamless promotion process and improve retention rates.

Let’s see what steps it takes to create a strong succession planning strategy.

Step 1. Discuss key objectives with stakeholders

Start by understanding what are your business’s short- and long-term objectives. Will your company be expanded? Are there structure changes planned? Ask business leaders what they expect from the HR department in terms of promoting strategies so you could tailor your plan to their needs.

Step 2. Outline key positions

Scan through the positions in your company to see which of them have a strong impact on business or require unique skills or a specific knowledge base. Consider the risk of turnover for these positions when deciding what job roles should be included in your succession plan.

Step 3. Define potential successors

When you know what positions require successors, you can search for potential candidates within employees. Make sure the candidates have tech and personal skills to successfully do the job. Ask managers and co-workers how they get along with the candidate and run psychological profiling to see if the person is suitable for this role. But don’t forget to make sure the candidates are willing to take such a promotion.

Step 4. Plan professional development activities

• When you’ve decided who will be taking the job, you can pinpoint the development opportunities for the candidate to become a perfect fit for the job. The most widely used strategies for preparing future employees include:
• Stretch assignment. The candidates are asked to perform a task that goes beyond their competencies at the moment but will be part of the tasks in the future. Thus, the employees learn in practice how to do their job.
• Professional development courses are excellent for strengthening theoretical knowledge.
• Mentoring program is when a senior employee coaches a chosen candidate for the job role.

Step 5. Assess the progress

It’s crucial that your succession plan worked out well. We suggest taking into consideration the following criteria that indicate your success:

• Internal to external hires ratio. If the number of internal hires is higher, your plan is working.
• Promotion decisions are mostly based on candidates’ skills rather than tenure.
• Time to fill in the position. Quick fill-in means you prepared successors well.

Step 6. Add succession planning to your recruitment planning

The potential candidates you’ve chosen for succession will live their posts eventually. This’s a perfect opportunity for you to consider their positions when planning the recruitment process and building a talent pipeline.

Succession planning example

The most famous succession plan example was in the Apple company. Before Steve Jobs had retired, he prepared Tim Cook to take over the top leadership role. Tim was involved in key operational processes and worked closely with Jobs to gain CEO-specific experience.

Wrapping Up

Succession planning provides companies with in-house recruitment and reduces the costs of the hiring process. This process involves choosing key roles within the company and preparing the internal workforce to step into the opening position when the time comes.