Succession Planning & Management is like many other efforts of organizations in ensuring the continuity of business performance through strategic engagement and dedication of high potential profiles.
Recently, HRM faces acute challenges in the competitive battle of building a well-rounded workforce. HRM is in the middle of two lines – loss of experienced talents and rapidly changing trends in the labor market. It is not difficult to place the prominence on succession planning and series of interventions to fill out talent gaps across organizations; however, in-time gap filing is always the tough story. Recruitment could address workforce gaps in middle levels and down, yet, cannot manage ones in leading managers who are achieved only by the proper growth out of an organization. Hence, the question is related to how succession planning can be any helped or connected with the corporate HR strategy?
Succession Planning is a critical road of identifying and developing management positions starting at the levels of middle managers or supervisors and extending up to the highest positions. Succession Planning and Management (SP&M) is to provide the maximum efficiency and flexibility of strategic workforce moves to ensure individuals’ greater seniority, skills, and knowledge matching with the overall objectives of the organization rather than purely department ones. In the real-time management of a dynamic business environment, having a thorough succession planning practice is the qualified shortcut to obtain internal intellectual capital.
Succession Planning has a close connection with High-potential Talent Planning. It is the process involving the identification of high-potential employees, evaluating and preparing them with suitable KSA advancing business objectives in line with individual developmental needs.
Succession Planning follows Strategic Workforce Planning in identifying key positions driving business success in the upcoming time. Steps are modified, added, or deleted depending on environmental conditions, succession planning culture, and business missions/ objectives of each context.
Knowing that gaps in business planning occur, it is high time for involving succession planning and management to ensure the achievement of business goals. It is the iterative process of identifying key areas and positions matching with capabilities and potentials. Briefly, the heart of successfully developing a succession and knowledge transfer plan bolsters the compatibility of priorities and goals between HR planning and business planning.
To top it all off, strengthening and improving Succession Planning becomes more critical in today’s competitive landscape. It directly influences organizational outcomes since nourishing talents is the shortcut to accelerate organizational performance. Companies have to ensure their fulfilled pool of capable talents. It means the pipeline of succession planning must be kept on churning out seamlessly.
Reference
Pandey, S. and Sharma, D. (2014). Succession planning practices and challenges: study of Indian organizations. Procedia Economics and Finance, 11, 152-165
Rothwell, W. J. (2016). Effective Succession Planning – Ensuring leadership Continuity and Building Talent from Within. (5th Edn.). New York, NY: American Management Association