Getting Succession Planning Right

Jim Holincheck over at BlogERP had a good post late last week on Succession Planning which is well worth a read. He discusses Peter Capelli’s book Talent on Demand, and a passage in the book that argues that many companies create succession plans, but don’t use them.

Succession planning is done with the best of intentions, but where organizations fail is that they often create the plan and stick it on the shelf. For a succession plan to be strategic, and successful in the long-term, it needs to be an ongoing priority where a talent pool is developed and cultivated over time.

It’s easy to see how the static, “update it every year or two succession plan” came into being. Traditionally, succession planning has been based on the org-chart replacement model where people are slotted into specific positions on the org-chart and planning is done from there. This model is very inflexible and not very adaptable, and often is only used for only leadership positions.

The best practices driven talent pool approach to succession planning enables organizations to overcome many of the shortcomings of the org-chart replacement model. William J. Rothwell in his book, Effective Succession Planning outlines many of the key steps organizations should take to create true succession planning and not just execute on replacement planning. Rothwell outlines when organizations need to move from the org-chart approach to talent pools, including some of the shortcomings of this approach such as there’s no way to respond to unexpected losses of talent, time to fill positions is too long, and workers complain that promotion decisions are unfair.

Using the talent pool model, organizations build a pool of candidates for positions enabling the organization to be much more flexible and focus development activities leadership and skills, and not just on the specific requirements of a single position. The organization is able to build bench strength, define and redefine requirements and identify where they may have to recruit new talent.

Holincheck points out that if “you do not define the right characteristics for key positions (and adjust them regularly as the organization evolves) or do not develop broader talent pools that can be slotted into multiple critical roles, then a lot of time and effort can be spent on succession management with little results to show for it.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, succession planning needs to be an ongoing project for HR and software used for succession planning needs to be a strategic enabler in that process, not just a solution for plotting in replacements. Ultimately, those organizations that approach succession planning as a ongoing program where they can adapt to a new direction, competitive situation or business climate with their talent, will be better able to drive performance and the organization’s long-term success.

If you want to see how talent pools are being used by organizations, check out this post on how CDPHP is using talent pools. It provides a look at how organizations are bring succession planning to life to meet real business needs.