Succession Planning

 


The baby boomers are retiring, leaving organizations with voids. From front-line employees to technical experts, sales managers, and administrative executives, boomers are employed at all levels of enterprises. Retirement gaps affect every area, from business and industry to health care, education, and government. Organizations must have a key employee replacement plan in place to deal with such disruptions. In this light, succession planning is regarded as an appropriate effort (Sambrook, 2005). Succession Planning, according to Rothwell (2001, p. 29), is a systematic process that is carried out in order to maintain and enhance the organization's future intellectual capital, particularly in key leadership roles. The succession planning process should be strategically connected with the company's goal. Historically, the focus has been on replacing key personnel precisely before they leave (Greengard,2001). It was mostly viewed as a means of employment replacement. Henri Fayol (1841–1925), a French management pioneer, was one of the first to understand and describe the ubiquitous necessity for succession planning in organizations (Rothwell, 2001). Attracting, extending, and keeping the greatest employees at all levels is now part of succession planning. It must take into account the fact that younger executives are more likely to switch workplaces and careers numerous times during their careers. Organizations frequently make the error of replacing personnel rather than growing them. According to Gulzar & Durrani (2014) at every level of the company, succession planning entails having the correct leadership in place. As a result, it also drives talent migration inside the organization. Even while managing talent at all levels is critical to an organization's success or failure as well as its long-term viability, having great leadership is even more critical.

Furthermore, there are other issues that arise as a result of the replacement process. In many circumstances, for example, it is difficult to find the perfect individual for a new position in a short amount of time. And if an organization cannot find the suitable person within its walls, it must employ that person from outside, which will increase the business's costs. In today's firms, developing universal abilities, flexibility, and leadership potential at all organizational levels is a sensible decision (Mamprin, 2002).

Source: Rothwell (2001)

Because any firm must invest in training and development of a person so that he or she is properly equipped and qualified to take over any leadership role, succession planning is critical for an organization. A succession planning model was presented by Rothwell (2010) as cited in (Ahmad, Ming & Sapry 2020). Commit, analyze current work, appraise individual performance, assess future work, assess future individual potential, close the development gap, and evaluate the succession planning program were the seven steps established in the model for systematic succession planning and management. In his concept, he stated that promotion from within the company is critical because, in order for succession planning to be effective, the organization must be able to replace key job holders as openings in their positions arise.

Meharabani and Mohamed (2011) came up with the following as part of their research findings as factors that influence succession planning:

i.) Training: Training plans assist employees in acquiring new skills and information, as well as new talents. People who have been trained are more empowered, thus training programs should be made available for successful succession planning. In relation to my current job, employees are given training for the next succession level. Its mandatory that each supervisor is fully prepared to act at a managerial level when the need arises.

ii.) Management Support: In order to develop an effective succession planning strategy, managers must provide a great deal of assistance.

iii.) Clarifying the career path is another component in which a business defines the career path in order to enable employees better grasp their professional ambitions and implement succession planning more effective.

iv.) Developing a good vision that will assist employees have a favorable attitude toward succession planning programs, decreasing fear in employees who believe succession planning will jeopardize their jobs. Effective succession planning is influenced by a strong corporate culture that instills values, beliefs, standards, and paradigms in all personnel. Employees can use these values, beliefs, norms, and paradigms as a reference point for their daily work. As a result, if these beliefs and criteria are in favor of succession planning system, employees would follow them too.

v.) Technological improvements have an impact on how workers are prepared for new employment. Furthermore, technological advancements make it easier for employees to seek employment elsewhere.

vi.) The organization's financial situation also has an impact on the implementation of successful succession planning. One of the most crucial prerequisites for training individuals is having appropriate finances for human resources.

“A person who does not worry about the future will shortly have worries about the present” (Ancient Chinese Proverb).


References

Ahmad, A.R., Ming, T.Z. and Sapry, H.R.M., 2020. Effective Strategy for Succession Planning in Higher Education Institutions. Journal of Education and e-Learning Research, 7(2), pp.203-208.

A. Mamprin, Next in Line: Five Steps for Successful Succession Planning, Washington, DC: The Center for Association Leadership, 2002.

Gulzar, S. and Durrani, A., 2014. Impact of succession planning on employee engagement in telecommunication sector in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. European Journal of Business and Management, 6(37), pp.274-281

Harrell, E., 2016. Succession planning: what the research says. Harvard Business Review, 94(12), pp.70-74.

Mehrabani, S.E. and Mohamad, N.A., 2011. Succession planning: A necessary process in today's organization. International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning, 1(5), p.371.

Rothwell WJ (2001).Effective Succession Planning. Ensuring Leadership Continuity and Building talent from Within. AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Schall E (1997). Public Sector Succession: A Strategic Approach to Sustaining Innovation. Public Admin. Review,57(1): 1-10.

Rothwell, W. J. (2001). Effective Succession Planning: Ensuring Leadership Continuity And Building Talent From Within, 2nd, New York: AMACOM.

S. Greengard, “Why Succession Planning Can't Wait,” Workforce, vol. 80, no.12, pp. 34-36, 2001.

S. Sambrook, “Exploring Succession Planning in Small, Growing Firms,” Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, vol.12, no.4, pp. 579-594, 2005.


Comments

  1. ChulangaPerera6 May 2022 at 17:41

    Nice Post Ashanthi.Succession planning has, by contrast, a bias towards satisfying organisation
    requirements. There is an assumption that failing to satisfy the majority of
    requirements from internally developed personnel is unlikely to provide the
    optimally effective organisation (Cannon and McGee 2011)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ashanthi Rajapakse7 May 2022 at 14:32

      Hi Chulanga, thank you for the great insight. It is critical to understand the obstacles to designing and implementing an effective succession plan. Organizational culture, insufficient resources for development and implementation, inadequate rewards, and increased competition for talent and leadership from other sectors and organizations are just a few of the barriers (NAPA,1997).In highly complicated, multi-divisional, and transnational businesses, internal candidates are frequently considered the greatest choice for CEO succession ( Conger & Fulmer, 2003 )

      Delete
  2. Namal De Silva6 May 2022 at 22:02

    Hi Ashanthi, great post and Even though it costs time and money in planning , companies can be assured that the right candidate is selected for the job, which in turn leads to higher productivity and reduced employee turnover (Mascarenhas, 2011)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ashanthi Rajapakse7 May 2022 at 14:09

      Indeed Namal. A good succession plan takes a lot of input and expertise. It has a comprehensive view of the business. Succession planning, on the other hand, assures leadership continuity and provides a firm basis for the board, employees, and managers when done appropriately and with foresight ( Richtermeyer, 2011 ).

      Delete
  3. Gimhani Hiroshima Perera7 May 2022 at 09:07

    Hi Ashanthi, Interesting topic. Succession planning tells internal demands of an organization, internal promotion and search external talent to recruit, train and retain (Armstrong, 2009). Where a firm is concerned with new recruitments and lowering employee turnover, succession planning tells about action HR planning. In the event that a manager leaves the company or dies, succession planning forecasts and identifies means to elevate new managers (Armstrong, 2003)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ashanthi Rajapakse7 May 2022 at 14:04

      Hi Gimhani. Thank you for the interesting feedback. Further to the above points mentioned, deciding which route to take when utilizing internal or external for succession planning will depend mainly on the talent within the organization (Garg & Weele, 2012 ). However, both have its advantage and disadvantages.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous13 May 2022 at 23:01

    Hi Ashanthi, Interesting topic. Even though it costs time and money in planning , companies can be assured that the right candidate is selected for the job, which in turn leads to higher productivity and reduced employee turnover (Mascarenhas, 2011)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Importance of Talent Management

Image
The twenty-first century has become a globalisation and technology-driven period in which businesses must keep one step ahead of their competition. As a result, global marketplaces have become extremely competitive, necessitating a competitive advantage in order to stay ahead of the competition. Employees are no longer constrained to showcasing their abilities simply inside one market or region as a result of globalisation's impact. Furthermore, employment are being moved to locations that best meet the organization's needs in terms of labor, skills, pricing, and capacity. Many businesses are moving their call centers, IT departments, manufacturing, finance, and accounting departments to nations with lower operating and labor expenses (Tucker, 2005), Kao & Verma, 2005). Keeping this in mind, businesses want personnel with exceptional talents and talented professionals to help them reach new heights. According to Shaikh, Tunio, and Shah (2017), all organizations can acquire ...
Read more

Improving Employee Performance Through Training And Development

Image
In today's highly competitive market, an organization's productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness are crucial goals that each company must strive towards. This is dependent on the nature of personnel, who must put up their best effort in order to achieve the organization's stated objectives. Training and development, according to Mohd, Julan, and Tuan Besar (2020), is intended to improve employee performance and, as a result, the performance of an organization. Training and development is a Human Resource management function that aims to bridge the gap between present and expected performance (Elnaga and Imran,2013). By merging the interests of the organization and the workforce, training plays a unique role in achieving an organizational goal (Stone R J. Human Resource Management, 2020). In general, training and development are procedures that involve increasing employees' knowledge and expertise in order to help them perform better at their employment (Mohd, Julan...
Read more

The Impact of Effective Recruitment

Image
Perhaps the most significant advancement in the field of associations in recent years has been the increasing importance placed on human resources. The process of drawing persons in a timely manner, in sufficient numbers, and with adequate qualifications is known as recruitment and selection (Walker, 2009 cited in Saviour et al., 2016). Individuals are important to organizations because they bring their own perspectives, values, and characteristics to the table, and when properly managed, these human attributes may be extremely beneficial to the organization. The fulcrum of human resource management is the development of people, their capabilities, and the process development of the entire organization (Mullins, 2016; Djabatey, 2012). People are important to organizations because they bring different perspectives, attitudes, and characteristics to the table, and when they're handled well, these human resources may make a big difference.   Recruitment and selection of personnel take...
Read more