Succession planning

From ArticleWorld

Succession planning is a process where an organization identifies and recruits superior employees to prepare them for promotion or advancement to more challenging, key roles through training and job rotation. This process allows the organization to keep employees with superior skills as they appreciate the investment being made in them.

In order for succession planning to work, the needs of the employees must be understood as well as the jobs they are being groomed to take over. A sound knowledge of the job market is essential to this process, as knowledge on which jobs will be difficult to fill externally will give clues as to which posts require succession planning.

Development activities

Assignments are a useful tool to expand an employee's knowledge of the position he is being groomed for. In succession planning some developmental activities are utilized to balance the need to fill vacancies. One of the developmental practices utilized is the use of assignments as a means to provide work experience and helping individuals grow and expand their knowledge in different fields. Other activities include mentoring, coaching, rotations and training programs.

Effective succession planning

An employee must be fully prepared to take on the new job's responsibilities, and not be left to 'sink or swim'. There are several trends of an organization which has developed an effective succession planning program. One of these is the smooth transition of employees into important vacancies. This is a critical measure of the accomplishment of an effective succession planning program.

It is important that the individual is prepared with all the skills needed to get the job done. This is usually done by the use of developmental assignments as opposed to the "sink or swim" approach, where the individual is just thrown into the job.

The use of appraisals and feedback is also crucial to the development of employees and the provision of clear criteria for individuls to aspire too. It is also a good practice to train more than one individual for a post in order to have several choices when vacancies arise.