I was invited to provide a talk on Succession Planning and prior to writing
this blog, I made some researches to expound on what I would share to the
attendees of my upcoming talk. Here are some of the key points that I
would like to share...
.JPG)
1. Succession Planning as key to sustainability of the
Activities done to attain organization's direction.
Succession planning actually is providing a plan or map should in case a
leadership post becomes vacated. The organization's leaders provide the
direction and goals; they lead the members of the organization on aligning
their activities to the attainment of the organizational goal. They
also are the implementer of projects for improvements and initiates changes for
the organizational growth.
If an organization suddenly loses a leadership post without clearly defining
the process of how to replace him/her, the organization will experience
disruption in their regular operations.
If the post is highly essential to the organization's productivity, losing
the employee occupying it may result to unrest or sudden stoppage. These
stoppage impacts the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization in
service to their clients. A long time built credibility may be tarnished
as a result of lacking in plan for leadership replacement. Thus, it is
really essential that a written plan or process should be integrated in the
policies or process manuals of the organization. This would provide the
organization some semblance on how to handle emergency loss of leaders or if
there's time, efficiency in the transition or transfer of leadership
responsibilities and authorities.
2. Succession Plan entails that an effective culture is
considered in the identification of successors.
Succession plans are not the same with all types of
organization. Different organizations have different culture and
goals. The leaders determine the values and culture of the
organization. If a leader is pro-learning, you will see projects and
programs geared towards the development of the employees. However, if the
leader is cost-conscious, expect that budgets are bigger for operational
requirements and usually training costs are cut-down to minimize
expenses. A leader who believes that to get the cream of the crop
employees would approve a higher-rate entry salary, but for leaders who
see that entry should be at the minimum would likely get employees whose
experiences is lesser or competencies are still to be improved.
In preparing a succession plan, consider the competencies for the leadership
post, as well as the soft-skills required for that post. Grooming future
leaders will take longer compared to finding the requirements from possible
candidates. The best thing to do is lay down first the benchmarks and criteria
for the identified leadership post then profile existing employees,
specifically those who are in the supervisory posts or officer posts.
3. Succession Planning involves cost and is risk taking.
If succession plan involves grooming, then the organization would have to
invest on the training and development of identified successors. However,
there is no complete assurance that the identified successors would really stay
for good. Early investment on supervisors and officers is risky but something
that we have to take. People's priorities change as time goes by.
If the organization is not able to keep the interest of that successor or if
the organization was not able to address the need of the employees, tendencies
are you would lose that employee or successor. Training bonds are not
enough to keep them. The best approach that HR can think of is creating a
program that would allow the employees see their future in the organization,
such as career path planning. This does not give 100% guarantee.
Remember, people are changing individuals and their needs & interests vary
over time.
For now, these are three (3) things that I can share with my readers.
If you have any comments or insights, please feel free to share. Have a
great day ahead.
