تخطيط التعاقب الوظيفي Succession Planning – إنسباير لإستشارات الموارد البشرية

Succession planning is essential to ensure that important positions in a company are not left vacant for long periods or filled by people who do not have the skills or knowledge to perform what job roles in their various forms require.

So, knowing who is next in line for top positions and being able to mentor those people to become the next generation of successful leaders for your company is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage and high team morale.

However, according to a survey conducted by SHRM, only 21% of HR professionals reported that their organizations have a formal succession plan in place, and another 24% have one but are informal. This means that more than half of the organizations where HR professionals surveyed do not have any succession plan.

The concept of succession planning

Succession planning is the process of selecting and developing key talent to ensure continuity of pivotal roles in the company. It is about identifying, mentoring and developing high-performers and potential leaders so that they can advance within the organization and move into high-level positions.

Employees in general, in various positions, are promoted, move from one company to another, and retire. This is a recurring scene on a daily basis in the business world. For this reason, companies need to develop a strong plan to ensure that jobs are filled by people who are fully prepared and qualified to perform the tasks required by job positions, especially pivotal ones. Of which.

The importance of succession planning

Succession planning is important to the success of an organization for many reasons including:

Reducing risks and disruption to work and ensuring continuity in the event of an unexpected employee departure.
Transfer essential knowledge and experience rather than losing it when someone who was performing an important role leaves.
Succession planning gives high-potential, high-performing employees a clear career path in your organization.
It helps you plan and prepare for the future based on different scenarios. This reassures potential shareholders that there is a clear outlook for the employer.

The four steps of the succession planning process

Talent development
Identifying leadership talent
Development of Leadership Skills
Making the succession decision

Best practices for succession planning

While succession planning brings many benefits to a company, only 34% of companies view their succession planning process as highly effective.

Therefore, applying best practices for succession planning can help companies overcome common succession planning challenges, such as adopting a long-term perspective and following up on development plans. These practices include the following:

Adopt a long-term vision.
Ensure an organized and clear development structure.
Collaborate with talent management in the planning process.
Use specific metrics that focus on results and not on the planning process itself.
To further illustrate this point, there are some common metrics you should track when planning succession, such as:

The number of high-potential employees who are qualified to fill pivotal positions.
Percentage of filling important positions.
Job turnover rate.
The strength of substitute assistants.
Talent utilization rate.
Percentage of interviews conducted to fill important job vacancies.
Number of consecutive promotions.