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Succession Planning for 2023: It's Not Just for Emergencies - It's a Leadership Development Strategy

Fortune 500 companies and small family businesses alike share a business need – ensuring that they have the talent necessary to effectively lead their organizations in the future. One of the most significant contributions a leader can make is insuring his/her business’ continuity and sustainability – by having employees who are willing and capable of filling each key position with a plan for doing so when the need arises. Succession Planning is a:

  • The deliberate, systematic process of anticipating the need for talent and ensuring that the necessary employee competencies and experience are available when needed in the future
  • A strategic approach for avoiding an undersupply of talent, enhancing the organization’s current talent pool, and meeting its future needs
  • Not having a Succession Plan can be costly and sometimes disastrous; it’s expensive to recruit, interview, select, onboard and train a new leader and significant opportunity costs are incurred when a key job is not being performed.

Session Highlights:

I. Succession plan

II. Objectives and benefits of succession planning

  • Sustain the business through a systematic effort to ensure leadership continuity in key positions
  • Encourage HiPos development by:
    –  Identifying career paths
    –  Conducting performance appraisals
    – Providing daily coaching
    –  Creating Individualized Development Plans [IDPs]
    –  Holding Talent Review meetings
  • Attract, retain and develop high potentials [HiPos]

III. Tools and processes commonly utilized for developing and implementing

  • Self-appraisals and career goals
  • Performance appraisals, 360 feedback, and ratings
  • Assessment instruments
  • GE grid
  • Individual development plans [IDPs]
  • HiPo talent development interventions
  • Talent review meetings

IV. What an organization, its leaders, and the program participants need to do to achieve an effective plan what an organization needs to do:

  • Supply funding/budget
  • Establish a clear vision and guidance for the program
  • Develop a formal, written program
  • Announce the objectives of the program to all employees
  • Ensure that all leaders and managers support the program

What the leaders need to do:

  • Have job descriptions developed for their teams
  • Conduct effective, formal performance appraisals
  • Identify employee developmental areas
  • Share their knowledge and experience
  • Involve employees in more of the leader’s responsibilities
  • Facilitate the completion of IDPs for all Hi Pos

What the program participants need to do:

  • Conduct self-appraisals
  • Identify their desired career paths
  • Learn as much as they can about potential future assignments
  • Perform to their capabilities
  • Complete their IDP
  • Develop the employees reporting to them – so they have successors

V. Potential measures of the program’s success

  • Whether there is, at least, one successor for each key position
  • Having developmental goals and IDPs established for each successor
  • Determining how much of their manager’s job the successors can perform
  • Determining whether successors can perform their manager’s jobs when they are unavailable and evaluating their performance during those times

Why You Should Attend:

The primary objectives for and deliverables of a succession Planning program are to:

  • Sustain the business through a deliberate and systematic effort to anticipate and ensure leadership continuity in key positions
  • Encourage individual development by:

   – Identifying career paths
– Conducting formal performance appraisals
– Providing daily coaching
– Creating Individualized Development Plans [IDPs]

  • Retain and develop the organization’s high potential [HiPos]

During Succession Planning Programs at the macro level the organization is proactively determining:

  • The talent needed in the future
  • The talent it has now
  • Where there are talent gaps
  • The initiatives necessary to close those gaps

At the micro level, the organization is addressing – for each of its key positions – questions such as:

  • What the organization would do if it had to fill the position tomorrow
  • Whether there is, at least, one successor who could immediately perform the duties of the position
  • If there is no successor ready now, what will need to be done to enable the best internal candidate to be ready and when can he/she be ready
  • Can the organization afford to wait or would it be better to recruit a successor, etc

Experience has found the following two processes to be very effective in enabling organizations to have the talent they need when it’s needed:

1 Performance Management and/or 360 Feedback Processes – through which the organization is able to:

  • Evaluate its employees’ current performance – based on documented, objective performance and achievements
  • Assess its employees’ advancement potential
  • Determine its employees’ current readiness for advancement
  • Obtain from its employees self-appraisals identifying their developmental needs and preferred career plans
  • Meet its bench strength needs by initiating Individual Development Plans and experiences – at least, for its players and/or high potentials – such as:

   – Special or stretch projects
–  Assignments in other depts./job rotations
– ‘Try-out/popcorn stand’ slots
– Mentors
– Formal training and development initiatives
– Fast track programs with exposure to other functions
– Intense coaching, etc.

  • Track their A Players’ and High Potentials’ performance and advancement potential against a Performance-Potential Grid

2 Talent Review Meetings – during which the executive team in a disciplined fashion:

  • Asks each leader to report on the status of the Individual Development Plans for each of their players and high potential
  • Ensure that each player and high potential is receiving regular coaching and is actively involved in opportunities that will help retain them while accelerating their development
  • Drives the organization past ‘business as usual by insuring that its future needs for human capital are identified and will be satisfied when the time arrives – as it will
  • Succession planning initiatives also increase the levels of engagement and performance of your players and high potentials – the talent your organization will most need in the future.

Who Should Attend:

  • HR Professionals new to the field – seeking a comprehensive view of the subject with multiple application initiatives
  • Experienced HR Professionals – seeking a refresher
  • Leaders and Managers – interested in understanding both how a Succession Plan benefits an organization and how to implement one

Speaker

Pete Tosh is the Founder of The Focus Group, a management consulting and training firm that assists organizations in sustaining profitable growth.

Prior to founding his own firm 25 years ago, Pete had 15 years of experience — at the divisional and corporate levels — in Human Resource and Quality functions. Pete held leadership positions — including the V.P. of Human Resources and Quality — with Allied Signal, Imperial Chemical Industries, Reynolds Metals, Charter Medical, and Access Integrated Networks.

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Recorded Webinar: All Time Available

Duration: 60 minutes

Speaker: Pete Tosh

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