Just as relevant for small businesses, succession planning should be part of your business strategy. Take the time to understand the critical roles and the talent you need within your business. For example, if you lose a key member of staff and haven’t considered this scenario, what operations could be affected? It’s also about spotting employees with potential, which in turn boosts engagement and morale, building the next generation of leaders.
There are numerous benefits to creating a succession plan:
- Future proofing the business. If a key employee leaves the business, having a plan in place means the person can be replaced quickly without minimal impact on productivity.
- Increase staff motivation. Identifying future leaders and those with potential can help staff feel valued and recognised.
- Aids retention. Providing junior employees with a clear career path supports their growth and retention within your business. With opportunity available to them, they are less likely to move on to progress their career. This in turn saves time and money spent on recruiting external candidates.
- Shape training and development. Succession planning can identify gaps in the business. It may showcase professional development opportunities for your staff.
How do I start succession planning?
Who should be involved in succession planning?
Depending on the size of your business you might want to include senior members of the team or those who have a good understanding of the roles within your business to help with the process. Book some time with these team members to get started with the succession planning process.
Start by identifying critical roles in the business
The definition of a critical role is unique for each company and can vary between industries. It may also vary over time and during business growth. For example, roles that were once defined as critical may reduce in importance and vice versa. New roles may also be created which have a bigger impact on the business.
When defining the critical roles, it’s important to remember that these are not just senior roles. There may also be more junior positions within your business that would leave a huge impact if they were left vacant.
It’s important to ask these questions for each:
- Are these roles working on projects/products that will drive the future growth of the business?
- Are these roles performing activities that others in the organisation cannot do or are not equipped to do?
- If we lost someone in this role, will it result in business disruption or potential loss of revenue?
- Are these roles doing something that has a direct impact on the reputation of the company?
- Are these roles contributing to building organisation capability in a way without which the future of our business will be in jeopardy?
The key factor to remember is that it’s the role we are discussing here, and not the person in that role. They might have a specific personality or way of doing things and are vital to the team but they should be identified as key talent, not a critical role.
Ensure all job descriptions are accurate
Successful succession planning only works if job descriptions are accurate and up to date. This will help to skills match and understand the skills needed for each role. Consider an HR audit to understand where the business may need to make improvements.
Succession planning critical roles
Once you have identified the critical roles within your company then you need to map out who would be the successors for the role and identify their readiness to take on the role.
Developing a talent matrix can help to easily identify internal succession candidates. Talent matrixes allow you to develop an understanding of employees’ current knowledge and skills, and what knowledge/skills gaps they would need to fill to be a suitable succession candidate.
Using the talent matrix, you can regularly assess the pipeline of talent within the team to see how they are developing, and help identify areas where you can aid their development, for example through involvement in new projects to develop skills they currently lack. To ensure the talent matrix is effective, every year it should be benchmarked against external talent, to ensure internal candidates are up to the same standard.
You may also identify gaps in your business where there are no natural internal successors. It’s important to come up with a plan for how to fill these roles should they become vacant. You might want to consider longer notice periods for these roles to ensure time to find a replacement and arrange a handover.
Plan the handover process
To help improve the handover process’s chance of success, where possible the predecessor of the role should meet with the successor of the role so the predecessor can offer insights into how the role works and the expectations of the board. Additionally, stakeholders should be involved in the process through regular communication.
Having a written plan, that includes a timeline for the changeover of roles and responsibilities, can help ensure a smooth transition. The plan can be strengthened through the involvement of senior management.
A Bespoke HR Consultant can facilitate a succession planning session with you and provide templates and advice. For support with succession planning, please find out more about working with Bespoke HR here.