Talent Management &

Succession Planing

Assuring Management Continuity 

Increasing rates of change in technologies, staffing needs, and employee retention mean that organizations must have effective processes assuring continuity of effective management.  Organizations must develop people with the right capabilities to fill key future roles.  Organizations that don’t address this often stumble when growing or when unexpected replacement needs arise.  How do organizations assure the readiness of internal talent and continuity of management?  By having an effective Succession Planning system that assures the identification, development and continuity of critical talent.

What is it?

Succession Planning is a systematic process of planning job appointments and successor candidates in order to address the organization’s management growth and continuity needs, as well as the developmental needs of employees.  As such, it is a critical aspect of Talent Management within organizations.

Why do it?

Key reasons for implementing succession planning include:

  • Creating a continuous flow of candidates—identifying and developing candidates who are positioned to move into new roles within the organization when the need arises.
  • Developing “The Right Stuff”—research has shown that 80% to 90% of management competence is developed through experiences on the job.  Guiding the experiences of employees can accelerate their development and help assure that they possess the right competencies.
  • Assuring the objective and systematic assessment of talent—assessing individuals in a consistent and job-related manner and assuring that this information is updated on a periodic basis.

What is the Process?

Our process typically follows these steps:

  1. Obtain Senior Management commitment.
  2. Leverage business plans to define future position requirements.  Is the business going to grow, maintain current levels, or consolidate?  What are the implications for staffing needs? 
  3. Define information (critical success factors) and process to be used.  What variables and process are to be used in tracking employees and jobs?  Competency Modeling helps define these critical success factors.
  4. Assess people and match them to jobs.  Objectively assess the promotability and readiness of employees.
  5. Create and implement employee development plans.  Which competencies need to be developed in people and how are they to be developed?  AAI’s Coaching Winners book is a critical tool for making this happen.

What are the Benefits?

Key benefits of talent management include:

  • Identified Leadership capability—who has true leadership capability?
  • Smooth management continuity—assuring that the organization has successor candidates positioned to move into key jobs as they arise.
  • Disciplined development of talent—a systematic process that documents information on employees and objectively objective their potential and readiness.
  • Enhanced employee retention—through the active development of employees, satisfaction and retention are enhanced.