Everyone seems to have their own preferred method of succession planning / succession management strategies. The most important thing to remember, no matter what "method" you use, is that succession planning is to identify who is ready now to move up in your organization, who will be ready next, and who may never be ready. How you keep track of your workforce is an important aspect of your people management skills.
First off, take look at yourself and your approach to the succession management process:
- Do you keep good records of available feedback and data?
- Are you fair and objective in your succession decisions?
- Are you providing those under your management the resources and opportunities to develop themselves so they can move forward in their career?
4 areas to identify when working up a succession plan.
- One page - with columns; detailed simplicity is best.
- Who is Ready Now?
* Name
* Current role
* Strengths – what do they bring to the table now, skills and behaviors?
* Weaknesses – where do you notice holes in skills and behaviors?
* Responsibilities you know they are ready for now.
* Areas you want them to develop as they fit into their new role; be specific. - Who will be Ready Next?
* Name
* Current role
* Strengths – what do they bring to the table now, skills and behaviors?
* Weaknesses – where do you notice holes in skills and behaviors?
* Identify what specific skills and / or behaviors are necessary for them to move into “ready now.”
* Help them obtain the training / coaching to develop themselves - Not Ready – these people are not ready now, next and possibly never will be.
* Name
* Current role
* Strengths and weaknesses
* Why are they not ready? Be very specific
* Is their “not ready” related to skills or behavior?
* Are they not ready because they need more stability right now in their work-life, instead of disrupting their known work environment? Will this change?
* What will these individuals need to do to get themselves ready? And realize, they simply may not be able to move themselves to that place.
* Are they failing now, and you simply cannot afford to invest any more resources into them?
I strongly recommend using behavioral assessment feedback to identify those “strength and weakness” areas of your employee’s succession plan. Combining assessment feedback along with your own observations (and others’ feedback) will provide a well-rounded overview for setting performance expectations and identifying the behavioral next steps relevant to career responsibility and development.
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