Are your succession plans in place?

I ask this question as I am about to coach a client on their plans to retain and develop two key team members and it struck me that this may be an area other business owners are grappling with.

Here is a 5 step process that you can use to ensure you have the right answer of the question for your business.

  1. Define the task and the timescale – as with all plans you must start with assessing the journey. This should involve two key questions being asked of yourself and answers agreed. When do I need a succession plan in place for and who am I looking to replace. Don’t forget succession plans are required for key team members aswell as yourself (selves). As part of an answer to these questions you should also ask yourself what your organisation chart should look like in the time scale you have deemed as appropriate to plan for. Often succession is required as a result of team and business growth as your capacity grows. At this stage you should NOT be thinking about who will go where.
  2. Differentiate between recruitment and succession – look at your organisation chart and remove the people who you do not feel will be in their current position at the time you are planning for. This can be due to two reasons – either they will leave the business or because you are planning to promote them to a different position. Then, taking into account your current career development plans with your team consider who has the capabilities to be promoted to which slot. These people will need targeted development plans as part of your succession plan. Then consider where you have gaps that you do not plan to fill through current team members. This will become your recruitment and induction plan over the defined timescale.
  3. Set a development plan for all concerned. The critical step in succession planning is engaging those you have selected as being the successors and building a development plan for them, that must include phased delegation of the key tasks as you get towards the time for role fulfilment. To be able to do this effectively there are two key things that need to be in place. Firstly, you need to build a Position description for the roles that are to be filled through talent development and then you need to agree with the planned successor for each role what their development needs are before they can be fully in place. CAUTION – if you do not do this you put good people in a position to fail! Remember, this process applies for roles where someone will be leaving the business as well as new roles that are being created through business growth. Doing this bit right is the difference between Delegation and Abdication!
  4. Hold meetings as soon as is reasonably practicable with all team members who you value and want to retain in their current positions and who you consider would be a significant loss to the business if they left you. These conversations need to be held constructively and taking Maslow’s hierarchy of needs into account

Remember – it is not only those you plan to promote that need to have their self-fulfilment needs adequately considered to remain a loyal and effective member of your team. Ther discussions should deal with confirming that they understand and buy into the plans to improve their performance in their current role and consider whether they have future promotion plans or whether they are square pegs in square holes. In reality, the only people you would not have these conversations with are those that you do not mind if they leave the business for either performance or attitude reasons ( these people should be under performance management for these reasons) or those in roles that are low skill and low fun enough that you are prepared to accept that churn will occur over the time-scale in consideration. NB – if you have someone in a lowly position remember that you may well have been there once so it is good practice to have all staff in a performance and career development process but this is not part of the succession plan.

  1. Set a recruitment plan. Once you have engaged with your team as above you need to re-visit the organisation chart you built and set a timed plan based on your budget and business plan to recruit to the positions that need filling at the correct time. As part of this process always consider the impact to your fixed costs of this plan and ensure your business plan is such that the gross margin of the activity you plan to deliver covers the fixed cost and leaves sufficient profit for your business value build plans.

I hope you find this a useful process to engage with. If you would like to discuss how it would work in your business please call me on 07511 969690 or e-mail rogerpemberton@actioncoach.com.