HR Lesson - Why Succession Planning Is A Data-Driven Discipline

Do you know... How many employees will retire or leave your organization in the next 1 or 2 years? What if these employees are managing key roles in your organization?

Are you prepared for their exit?

Untimely death, sudden resignation and a gradual replacement plan are some of the situations that may require you to be prepared with the potential leaders and fill key positions, whenever required.

Even if it is sudden exit of key employees, succession planning, when tied with smart strategies, can make a huge difference between success and failure in an organization. Succession management is a systematic process of analyzing data to identify and develop potential leaders, when old leaders leave, retire or die.

To manage complex succession planning process, many software vendors provide integrated succession management software to help organizations in preparing future leaders and staying competent. It also helps in identifying skill-gaps so that the missing skills in employees can be identified and developed. Developing internal employees to fill key positions in a company has never been so easy before.

Does Your Organization Need Succession Management?

No matter how big or small your organization is, you need to implement succession planning process in order to ensure that employees are constantly developed to fill key positions within a company.

For instance, Janet is a top performer in John's team, so she is more likely to succeed John whenever the need arises. Not to forget, the biggest benefit of a well-planned and systematic succession management program is - the organization remains committed to identify and develop employees, like Janet, who can take over a leadership role without interrupting business in any way.

Talent management system also keeps managers on the toe to identify key employees in each team, continuously encourage them to improve their skills and consider them when key positions opens up.

It is true that succession planning process brings a win-win situation for employees and employers, where both of them gain benefits.

How Employees Feel Encouraged When Their Employer Implements Succession Plan?

1. A top performer knows that there is a more challenging, leadership role awaits for him/ her. This gives them a reason to develop skills, outperform and improve performance. In this way, employees feel valued, engaged and they tend to retain with the organization for a longer span.

2. Employees are always eager to stay with an organization that provides best career development opportunities. To attract and retain top talent, a successful succession plan is must. When employees realize that their employer plans for their growth and development, it keeps them motivated and it builds strong employee-employer relationship.

3. Potential leaders are identified and they are introduced to the rest of the organization. So when an opportunity comes up, these employees are considered for a key role even in a cross-functional area.

Advantages of a Succession Management Plan For Employers

1. Preparedness: The need to replace employees on key roles may come as a surprise to you. So, if your organization already has a set of potential leaders, your organization may continue to perform business processes as normal.

2. Save Time & Money: Planning future of your company and developing your top performers should be managed at the same time. Developing internal people will save an organization from recruiting, hiring and on-boarding external employees. Training top talent internally could mean less time spent in recruitment functions and money can be saved significantly.

3. Strengthen Your Workforce: While succession and talent management is all about strengthening employee skills, but it also unveils weaknesses of your workforce. Offering training and resources to push back employee weaknesses enables an organization to develop a highly competent workforce.

Effective succession planning prepares an organization for all sorts of eventualities. For a successful succession management, each of these HR practices, including internal & external training opportunities, lateral moves, assigning potential leaders to special projects and more, holds great importance.

Don't spend time in facing difficulties to fill key roles, instead plan a succession management strategy and take help of a professional   succession planning software to identify, develop and manage potential leaders in your organization.

Bhatia Tushar is CEO-founder of cloud-based global HR Platform EmpXtrack. Saigun Technologies (parent company) Was founded by Tushar with a mission to provide HR automation for small and median businesses. He has worked in the US for a number of Fortune 500 companies and has steered the launch & growth of successful businesses. An alumni of IIT Delhi, Tushar is an expert in Product Architecture & Design and focuses on Enterprise Application Integration and Product Development Frameworks using multiple technologies. http://www.empxtrack.com


 By Bhatia Tushar

Article Source:  HR Lesson - Why Succession Planning Is A Data-Driven Discipline