Succession-Planning: Beneficial for AllBusiness - Not Just Big Corporations

Succession planning - a process to ensure business continuity over time - is a prudent strategy for businesses large and small alike. Its purpose is to make certain that critical roles within the organization can be seamlessly filled when positions are exited due to leadership transitions, employee departures, illnesses, retirements or promotions.

The plan involves identifying roles of vital importance within the organization, then building a pipeline of qualified, skilled employees who can easily step into vacant positions, having been trained to do so internally. A succession plan ensures there’s no last minute panic or scramble to fill positions - or need to hire external employees - so that workflows and productivity are not significantly disrupted by changes in personnel.

More fully fleshed-out succession plans can even include guidelines for less-critical but hard-to fill positions within the organization. It can also document top management’s wishes for the business’ fate upon their retirement, for instance:

• Bequeath to family
• Sell to outside party
• Set up employee buy-out

It’s best to implement a succession plan well in advance of even a planned role departure so that employees being trained to take on the responsibilities are fully up to speed and poised to step in without missing a beat.

In addition to making employee transitions less disruptive, succession planning’s effects trickle down throughout the company ranks in these ways:

• Assuring internal business intel and processes are retained over time
• Boosts employee retention and loyalty by keeping workers actively engaged and invested in business operations and demonstrates pathways to internal professional development
• Building a strong internal talent pool that nurtures long-term company stability

Implementation of a succession plan is a process that entails several steps, including:

• Identification of those roles considered critical to the business for vision and success
• Assessment of existing talent within the company to determine which current employees have potential to benefit from additional training, mentoring, education and experiential opportunities (like conferences and workshops) in order to eventually take on those critical roles within the company
• Development of a personalized career trajectory roadmap for those employees to be filling the succession plan pipeline to ensure they receive all they require to enable them to take on the role when it’s their turn to step in

It’s important to be agile when implementing your succession plan because your business - and its employees - will grow, change and evolve over time. Review your succession plan regularly so you can adapt it to those changes.

It’s clear that, even though succession planning is most often thought of in terms of big corporations, it can be just as beneficial to a more modestly-sized business. You’ll be rewarded in the future for your diligent planning with a seasoned leadership team who’ve been groomed for the roles they take on.

Can succession-planning benefit your company?