Passing the Torch: A Guide to the Succession Planning Process

By Wanda Pina-Ramirez and Norma Davila

Don’t wait for a crisis. Maintain business continuity with a succession plan.

One hundred percent of top global companies—and 72 percent of all companies—have a formal succession planning process. If your company is in the minority, a move in the right direction is easier than you may think. Authored by talent development experts Wanda Piña-Ramírez and Norma Dávila, this workbook highlights the importance of knowledge transfer in a time of fierce competition for talent, an aging workforce, and a critical shortage of people with the right set of skills.

Indispensable for the CEO as well as the small business owner, Passing the Torch presents stories from the boardroom to the family-owned bakery, and from the car dealership to the beach resort hotel. This is a book for all with a stake in maintaining the livelihood of a business and contains templates to guide you through the seven steps of the succession planning life cycle. In this book, you will learn:

why all companies, regardless of industry or size, must create a succession plan

how to create a business case to guide your company through the succession planning life cycle

how to identify key positions and retain key people in your company

• Language: English
• Publisher: Association for Talent Development
• Release date: May 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781607282785

Book preview

1

INTRODUCTION TO SUCCESSION PLANNING

When did you start to think about succession planning for the company? What made you begin to consider succession planning? Why do you think that succession planning is important? Which positions should be included in a succession plan? Perhaps you think that succession planning is more or less common among organizations. Maybe you think that succession planning is solely the responsibility of the human resources function. Or you believe that succession planning should only be completed for very senior positions. When thinking about your own potential successor, regardless of your position in the organization, do you think about your own employees?

Key individuals share what they do and their main contributions to the business. They possess crucial knowledge, skills, and competencies that are difficult to find on short notice.

What Is Succession Planning?

Succession planning is a business strategy; it has an impact on business finances and results, as well as on employee careers and engagement. Succession planning serves as a blueprint for the business because it manages the company’s current and future human and financial resources.

Consider what you know about succession planning by answering the questions in Worksheet 1.1.

Worksheet 1.1: What Is Succession Planning?

Now that you’ve considered the meaning of succession planning, let’s examine our definition as well as what other authors and practitioners say. First, however, it’s important to clarify the differences between replacement planning, succession planning, and succession management (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1: Interrelationship of Replacement Planning, Succession Planning, and Succession Management

These three practices are interrelated and are often misunderstood as being equivalent. Replacement planning is where most companies start. It is a very targeted effort focused on specific areas, where internal candidates for top managerial levels are identified as potential backups for unexpected vacancies, perhaps on a temporary basis, typically without involving development beyond on-the-job experience (Rothwell 2010; Day 2007; Office of Human Resources Management, Louisiana State University n.d.). For us, replacement planning is an approach to fill an expected or unexpected vacancy that could become a potential problem using the resources available, mainly at their current state of development, and, mostly, for managerial levels; in some instances, replacement planning includes key positions that can go beyond managers. Thus, replacement planning is sometimes adequate to meet the needs of some businesses. In other cases, it is the only action that businesses can take, given their resources in emergency situations.

Because of its limited, short-term focus, replacement planning is often not enough for business continuity. This is where succession planning comes into play. Succession planning is:

The consistent, constant, and organized process to identify, develop, and support a pipeline of candidates for different positions throughout the company in order to maintain its uninterrupted operations in case of planned or unexpected vacancies, ensuring business continuity. Succession planning is all about making sure that the company stays in business with the right people in the right place at the right