Industry Insights: Succession Planning
How to plan for future success
By Gillian Webster, Organisational and Development Consultant
A recent survey by the small business service estimated that 100,000 companies fail every year through a lack of succession planning. Larger companies can also be in danger. Similarly, an Investors in People survey revealed that £2 billion had been wiped off FTSE 350 shares due to poor succession planning.
Eighteen months ago when candidate after candidate ducked out of the competition to succeed Charles Allen as ITV’s Chief Executive matters became embarrassing. Too many companies leave it too late before addressing the issue.
Succession planning is seen as a crucial process by many major employing organisations, but there is often the assumption that talented individuals with potential will manage their own careers. Now however, more and more organisations are asking what they can do to retain and coach people as talent gets scarcer and harder to find.
What is succession planning?
Are you preparing your organisation for the future?
Are you effectively managing your talent within the business?
Succession planning is a process by which one or more successors are identified for key posts. Career moves and key development activities are planned for these successors to nurture them in the short or longer term.
It’s about being prepared when key leavers leave the business by having planned for both the expected and the unexpected, and ensuring that the company is equipped to continue on its trajectory. It’s also about ensuring that your management development and management training is focussed upon the future. Too often these activities are delivered to reflect the here and now.
How robust is your succession planning?
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Does your current talent pool match what is required to pursue the organisation’s objectives?
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Who are the key, critical people that the business relies upon?
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What do you need to do to keep this talent within the organisation, even if the key people decide to move on?
You may already have in place robust succession planning strategies, but how proactive are you in your approach to talent management? Talent management is about recognising that talent, really understanding how the individual’s potential will meet the business’s need in the future, and focusing on their specific development needs.
Proactive talent management is extremely powerful for an organisation. It enables it to measure succession depth and to understand exactly if people in the organisation are ready to progress now, or if they could be ready in one or more years’ time with some focused personalised development.
You may find that you don’t have the latent skill set you need and that external recruitment is the only answer, but the sooner you know the better.
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