Succession Management and Career Planning

Succession Management and Career Planning- Succession management is an ongoing process to identify, assess and develop an organization’s leadership capabilities to enhance its performance. This also involves an ongoing strategic talent planning, retention planning, talent assessment and development and retirement. Succession management is done in advance and is a continuous process and affects an organization’s long term direction and growth. The increased demand for diverse employees is also becoming important and as a result many organizations are integrating workforce diversity along with succession management.

Since succession management is he process to replace a departing employee, the employees identified by succession management as candidates for the open position are given a fair chance. Information on the opening should be disseminated to all employees to give them the opportunity to apply for the position in case some talent is being overlooked. A succession management plan is a written policies and guidelines document that drives the succession management process for the organization. Similarly a replacement planning process is the creation of backup candidates or specific senior management positions.

Development of a Succession Management System

The development of a succession management system includes the position to focus and to check if the job description outlines the current and future competencies, behaviors and values a person needs to perform at high levels in a key position. For example if the organization is planning to change its culture to become more service oriented, new customer service capabilities are added to the job requirements matrix and job specification. If technology is also integrated the technology skills should be added. As people grow in an organization, new ways of managing and leading are needed. This is the first step and this includes:

• The capabilities for executing new responsibilities
• The time frame that govern how one works
• New work values, or what is believed to be important

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