4 Succession Planning Best Practices for a Strong Leadership Pipeline
Peopletree Group
We help HR managers in mid-size businesses align their people and their profit for growth.
There is a fundamental problem with your succession process if the successors you nominate don’t end up in the roles they were intended for.
In this article, we’ll uncover the top 5 succession planning best practices that you can implement today to build a strong leadership pipeline.
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What is the difference between succession planning and succession management?
People often use the terms “succession management” and “succession planning” interchangeably. We prefer to use succession management, because it goes beyond simply identifying new leaders to replace current leaders when they leave.
Succession management takes a broader approach that aims to build a talent pipeline within an organization to support long-term strategic growth and unexpected change. The key thing to remember, is you're looking to accurately predict both the gap, and the time of arrival of future successors, and prepare them for the transition so they succeed.
Understand the distance and speed gap between where your successors are now and where they need to be
Succession management isn’t just about looking at whether a successor is “ready now”, “ready in 1 - 3 years" or "ready in 3+ years". A succession readiness assessment should give you an accurate time to readiness. Vague descriptions like, “ready now”, “ready in 1 - 3 years" or "ready in 3+ years" are not helpful. The difference between one years and three years is significant when you're dealing with a vacancy. This is where the right succession assessment tools make all the difference.
To accurately measure readiness, you need to determine both the distance of identified successors from their target position and the speed or how quickly they can close the gap.
Complete a talent assessment of every potential candidate for the role
A common mistake that many companies make, is not identifying every possible successor for their critical roles. You have to cast a wide net. And the only way to do that, is to establish clear metrics to gauge readiness.
There are many different succession assessment tools out there, so how do you know which tool is right for you?
To make better decisions about successors, you need to consider multiple readiness factors. At Peopletree Group, we assess readiness using 9 different data points. Each of these data points helps us to determine distance (gap between where they are now and their target position) and speed (how fast we can get them there).
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Distance data points include:
Speed data points include:
Allocate a successor developer
Once you've determined the readiness gap for each of your nominated successors, you need to put together a tailored development plan.
A common issue with implementing the development plan, is that nobody is nominated as the successor developer, or the person responsible for preparing the successor for their future role. In the majority of cases, the outgoing incumbent is not the right person to prepare their successor. Why? Because they're not invested in their successor's success. The “successor developer” should be the current incumbents manager, or the person that will be responsible for making the final hiring decision when the outgoing incumbent leaves.
Choose the right succession planning software and technology
The most important function of strategic HR is to provide fast, accurate answers to the “Who?” questions business leaders ask. The software and technology you choose to implement should enhance both the speed and accuracy of getting to these answers.
If your data is incomplete, it limits your ability to answer accurately (because you’re not forming a complete picture). If your data is difficult to access (e.g. you have multiple disparate systems) or the data takes too long to collect and analyze, it limits your ability to answer questions quickly.
If you’ve been managing your succession process with disparate software systems, manual spreadsheets or missing data, it may be time to upgrade to an end-to-end succession solution.
The Peopletree Group approach is to design a solution with you, by simplifying your tools, technology, systems, and processes. We provide IT, data management, infrastructure, data visualization, HR, and change management skills that deliver a solution, not a product.
Connect with us to trial our succession process with your data. Receive a detailed succession report with recommendations to discuss with your colleagues.
Global Director at Peopletree Group
12 个月Point 4, allocate a successor developer, is often assigned to the current incumbent of the critical role. They are seldom in the best position to develop the identified successors. 1. Not all successors necessarily report to them. 2. They can't necessarily identify the right type of development assignments because they could be elsewhere in the business. 3. They don't have an incentive to develop a successor, because it's not usually their problem once they've moved on. Someone needs to own the role of successor developer and it's NOT the current incumbent.