People Innovation Excellence

What Is a Succession Plan, and Why Do You Need One?

A succession plan protects your organization’s viability as it moves into the future by making sure that qualified talent is available to replace people in key positions who leave the organization.

Ideally, succession planning is an ongoing, continually readjusting process, a process that is woven into your overall strategic plan as a guarantee that your organization won’t miss a step when a critical position becomes vacant. Succession planning includes developing replacement talent within the organization, as well as identifying externally available talent sources.

Unfortunately, too many organizations put succession planning on the back burner. A key person leaves, and everyone scrambles to find a replacement. That’s short-term thinking. You need to think long-term. In order for your organization to continue to survive and grow in the future, you need to make sure that you’re covered if you lose people in critical positions.

You need succession planning.

Why You Need Succession Planning ?

Today’s world of work is changing in ways that are affecting organizations more than ever before in history. More and more employees are changing careers and jumping jobs. New generations  with their different values, behaviors, and expectations are reshaping the workplace. Increasing cultural diversity is challenging the way managers manage.  As a result, the need for continuous succession planning is greater than ever.

What happens when you don’t have a succession plan?

Not having a succession plan puts the future of your organization at risk. In this highly competitive, fast-paced world, you need every resource you can get. In every position — from your CEO to your IT technician  you need the talent required to keep up with the times. Not having a succession plan in place when you lose key talent, especially if it happens unexpectedly, can cause all kinds of problems:

  • An often confusing lack of clarity about your organizational direction
  • Anxiety among employees, which leads to a drop in their motivation, satisfaction, and morale
  • Lower quality of service provided to your customers
  • A drop in productivity
  • Delays in completing critical projects
  • A loss of critical knowledge
  • Diminished flexibility in responding to market challenges
  • A decline in the company’s reputation, image, and credibility

When these kinds of things happen, your organization may find itself losing out to the competition — organizations that have succession plans in place to cover potential losses of talent.

What a succession plan can do for you?

A dynamic, updated succession plan does the following:

✓ Conveys to people throughout your organization that youvhave a clear sense of direction and you’re supporting it by properly managing your talent

✓ Prevents anxiety among employees stemming from worry about where the organization may be going

✓ Ensures that you have the talent to deliver the kind of quality of services you want to deliver

✓ Ensures the kind of talent that will help you maintain high levels of productivity

✓ Helps you avoid any delays that would occur in critical projects due to the departure of needed personnel

✓ Gives you a vehicle for making sure that critical knowledge is passed on to new people

✓ Gives you the flexibility you need to respond to market challenges by maintaining and even improving talent in key positions

✓ Helps you more effectively implement your strategic business plan

✓ Helps you identify potential talent throughout your organization

✓ Helps people in your organization see opportunities for career advancement

✓ Helps you identify any needed training or other kinds of personnel development to maintain the kind of talent you need

✓ Helps maintain your company’s reputation, image, and credibility Taken together, these benefits of an effective succession planning process will help your organization be more competitive and successful in the marketplace.

Sumber : Dahlke, Arnie. 2012. Business Succesion Planning for Dummies. New Jersey : John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


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