Does your business have aspirations to grow? Do you have employees that are retiring? Are there critical roles that, if left vacant, will impact the business? If these are areas of concern, then succession planning is a strategic activity that you should undertake to mitigate risks associated with recruitment of key roles, retention of critical people and related business impacts.
Key steps of succession planning:
1. Identify critical positions (existing and new), that you will need and competencies, skills and knowledge that are essential for business success in the short and long term.
2. Assess your employees’ performance, and potential to be successors for the critical positions.
3. Create a succession plan for the critical roles. Identify development activities to support your employees' growth and future career development.
4. Discuss development activities and future career development with your employees. Ensure that you record internal successors (if applicable) and their readiness level for the critical roles in your organization.
5. Document succession planning activities and revisit on a regular basis at least once per year.
Succession planning is not an activity reserved for large organizations. Smaller organizations can benefit from responding effectively to unexpected changes, working successfully with limited resources and managing transitions of key roles within the business.
Please contact us at info@p3cc.ca if you need support in activating succession planning in your business.