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The Big Picture

Best Practices of Succession Planning

Firms that have been recognized as best practice organizations have offered the following recommendations for creating success in your succession plans:

• Ensure that the succession plan includes a focus on critical business priorities facing the organization. This helps the plan retain urgency and support.

• Develop methods of assessment to monitor the succession planning process. These methods vary according to business goals and company culture.

• Keep the process simple. A complicated and involved process may look impressive, but it may be too burdensome to execute and maintain.

• Small initial steps can help avoid overwhelming your team and the prospect of change creating a negative response to the plan.

• Use a core set of competencies to establish a standard of comparison for assessment.

• Use technology to monitor and update development needs and activities in a timely manner. These software solutions should be selected based on the specific requirements of the organization.

• Align succession management with overall business strategies. You’ll get buy-in from your executives and managers more readily if they can see how it supports the bottom line.

• Assign responsibility for managing the processes and tools to the human resources department, and make business or line units responsible for using the system to manage their own staffing needs.

• Ensure that you have the support of senior management. Their endorsement and support will make the difference in the success of the plan.

• Ensure there are individualized development plans for each employee; the human resources department creates the opportunities for employees to participate in the development activities. In most organizations, HR also monitors and tracks employee participation in these activities.

• Employ a variety of knowledge transfer methods instead of relying solely on classroom training for employee development.

• Maintain constant stakeholder involvement so that there are no surprises with the end result.

• Rotate leadership of the succession planning team to maximize effectiveness and avoid burnout.

• Recognize successes throughout the process to continue to motivate team members and stakeholders.

• Ensure methods to analyze and interpret data are uniform and accurate.

• Provide training for stakeholders on the succession planning process.

• Ensure that recruitment, hiring, performance management, development programs, and retention efforts are all in alignment with your succession plan.

• Provide clear criteria for participation, realistic position descriptions, and ongoing communication to employees to ensure transparency and promote the integrity of the program.

• Recognize that specific positions may not be necessary prerequisites to a key position if the competencies have been gained in other experiences.

• Use the succession planning process as an opportunity to build on institutional knowledge by capturing vital information, processes, and procedures throughout the organization and creating a central location for this knowledge.

Variations in Succession Plans

Although many best practice organizations have factors in common, there are also some areas of individuality:

• Some companies felt that the process should be semi-transparent, choosing not to tell high-potential candidates of their designation to avoid raising expectations, yet others thought that the process should be completely transparent to keep qualified employees from looking elsewhere for advancement opportunities.

• Organizations also differ in the amount of technology used, the number of core competencies identified, the size of talent pools, the scope of their plans, and many other factors.

• Succession planning programs are not universal, but they are elastic. In fact, many of the best practice organizations failed in their first attempts at succession planning until they determined the system that worked best for them. And the evaluation and adjustments are ongoing continually.

• As long as there are changes in the organization, its strategic initiatives, its employees, and the marketplace, there will need to be corresponding adjustments to the organization’s succession plan.

Upcoming Generations and Succession Planning

As Millennials and Generation Z move to become the majority of the workforce, it’s important that organizations adjust succession planning to better address the specific needs and working tendencies of these generations. The good news is that, in fact, these types of changes can help all generations in the workplace.

All generations of engaged workers are looking for easy-to-understand, transparent processes for career development. Millennials and Gen Z also want systems that allow them more control in their career planning, such as the ability to individually access and use the career development modules of succession planning software.

These requirements become even more important as these latest generations are likely to move around in their careers to find a workplace that provides these conditions. The Gallup report How Millennials Want to Work and Live noted that 87 percent of Millennials rate “professional or career growth and development opportunities” as important to them in a job. ThriveMap reported that while nearly half of all employees have left jobs that didn’t meet their expectations, the numbers for Gen Z were much higher, at 73 percent. And, according to a 2018 Deloitte Millennial Survey, 43 percent of Millennials and 61 percent of Gen Z plan to leave their current jobs in the next two years.

What does this mean?

In order to address the interests and needs of these workforce generations, organizations should consider changes that make succession planning simpler to understand. They’ll need to ensure that career development is an ongoing discussion and a process that is more easily accessed by the employee.

The following considerations can help organizations ensure that their succession planning and talent development are tailored for all generations:

Practice simplicity.

This means either using basic tools or software that allows employees access to:

• competencies that have been identified as important to the organization

• tools that explain how these key competencies are measured

• a ranking of their current skill levels in these competencies

• development opportunities to increase strengths and improve areas of weakness.

Maintain ongoing communication.

Surveys have shown that Millennials are more likely to be engaged when their managers hold regular meetings with them. This practice can work with other generations also, if the format, message, and goals of the sessions are clear. The meetings should include regular conversations on skill development and opportunities. This also means that the concept of an annual performance evaluation should be a thing of the past. Performance discussions, coaching, and feedback should occur throughout the year.

Be transparent.

While this has been a controversial area of succession planning, many employers are discovering that the dangers of not telling employees that they are being considered for advancement are greater than the potential disappointment if that advancement is delayed. This has become evident to organizations who have lost high-potential employees who didn’t feel that there were opportunities for advancement. In some cases, the sad truth was that these employees were being considered for leadership roles; they just didn’t know it. When using tools such as the 9-Box Grid, some organizations opt to practice limited transparency. They inform only the employees in the middle to high performance and potential boxes of the grid that they are in the pipeline for leadership roles.

Assess talent.

This process is one that could use development in many organizations. Simply having the manager assess the potential of an employee could easily be a biased process. Broadening the scope and number of assessors can help to standardize and make these results fair and more consistent throughout the organization.

Update job descriptions.

Frequent review and updating of job descriptions helps to ensure that performance is more accurately measured. Trying to evaluate performance that significantly differs from the job description is ineffective and more than likely will be a source of confusion and demotivation for the employee. Allowing the employee to be a part of this update process ensures that future hires to this position won’t experience the disappointment that occurs when the real-life job duties do not match what an individual was hired to do. It also allows employees to feel a part of the process, which promotes involvement and buy-in.

Conduct big-picture discussions.

While Millennials and Generation Z are more likely to leave companies, they still respond to the loyalty and engagement of their managers. They, just like workers of most generations, want to be recognized for their skills, abilities, and accomplishments. They need to understand how their skills fit into the future of the organization. They also want to have access to the development they need to become a bigger part of that future. And not only do they need to understand their own jobs and roles, but they also need to understand the roles and strengths of those they work with. The Gallup report How Millennials Want to Work and Live noted that only 43 percent of Millennials strongly agree that they know what their coworkers are expected to do at work. Understanding one’s role within the bigger picture of the workplace can help to build understanding and engagement as part of a team and, ultimately, retention as an employee.

Reevaluate learning.

Training classes, web-based training, and other traditional forms of learning must be reevaluated for the digital generations. They are well versed in finding information on their own. They know how to network and develop collaborations online because of their lifelong exposure to Internet and online resources. Rather than sending them to classroom sessions where only a small percentage of the information is of interest to them, organizations will want to develop alternate methods to help them access the latest information and different ways to assess the learning of this information.

Follow up.

Managers will need to follow up on development talks with feedback, coaching, and adjustments to ensure that these individuals continue working toward the appropriate level of skill development. These talks are not only important to the individuals but also to the overall succession plan in which they represent the bench strength for key roles.

Repeat.

Continue career development coaching regularly to address changes in the economy, the workplace, and employee goals. If succession planning efforts are pushed to the back burner, the impatience of all generations will cause them to once again start looking for organizations that “walk the walk.”

While we discuss these factors as important for upcoming generations, they’re ones that we need to consider if we are to make workforce development and succession planning more effective for all generations. The lesson we might learn from this is that upcoming generations are not making the workplace more difficult with their work styles; they are forcing all generations to adapt to each other’s needs and overcome the dreaded statement of “We’ve always done it that way.”

Summary

This chapter examined best practices of organizations that are currently applying the principles of succession planning. It looked at the specific ways they have addressed challenges and the criteria they all share.

As you implement your plan, remember that there are numerous areas for growth, including technology, improved assessment methods, and even the chance to expand your efforts into the larger concept of workforce planning, where you’ll create career paths for everyone who joins your organization. And that’s one of the exciting things about succession planning. It’s just the beginning of a better workplace for your organization and every individual in it.

Getting It Done

As you go through the process of succession planning, refer to the list of best practices to help you learn from others. And as your organization experiences successes, share your information with us so that we can continue to learn from each other. True success in succession planning means that it never stops getting better.