More successful businesses are embracing succession planning to deepen their employee bench strength and ensure they have top talent at every level of the company. At the same time, succession planning is intended to ensure that an organisation can meet its future needs for people.
If you look more closely, talent management and succession planning have frequently been linked together. It’s no exaggeration to say that many people struggle to differentiate between the two terms. That’s why I want to emphasise in this article that, in fact, succession planning and talent management should be integrated, not two separate sets of processes. Most importantly, without a well-executed talent management strategy, successful succession planning cannot exist.
In practice, we can say that talent management is a good foundation for companies that wish to have effective succession planning. This is because talent management generally incorporates the practices of not only attraction but also identification and development of people with potential.
In my previous articles, I have talked about talent management several times as I see it as one of the most vital topics to be applied in every organisation that aspires to be relevant in the market, particularly since human capital is the most critical asset any organisation can ever have.
The concept of succession planning, however, might be a little more difficult to understand. Even though many people know and see the value of building a succession planning strategy, they don’t know where to start.
Just like talent management, succession planning needs to start with assessing the key positions, in other words the roles in the company that are critical for the business. Then, you need to identify the key talents to fill such positions before assessing them in more detail to see whether they have what you are looking for.
Once you’ve assessed their talents, you can begin to develop and generate long-term development plans to groom and deepen their bench strength in all the critical areas of the business. Eventually, you need to create a consistent and ongoing review process to make sure your succession planning is effective and solid.
The process I’ve just outlined contains only the high-level key elements of succession planning but it is certainly a good start. Also, I’m sure that now you can see a lot of overlap between talent management and succession planning; as I said, the two practices should be integrated, not separated. Moreover, each firm needs to fit its approach to talent and succession management to its own particular business needs, culture and workforce outlook for the best outcome.
While it is true that talent management and succession planning have always been important, I can guarantee that in the near future they will become even more significant, particularly as we are facing a dramatic change in the workforce landscape with the retirement of baby boomers and the sudden influx of millennials.
Companies will, sooner rather than later, wake up to the fact that there are costs and even pain associated with not having the right talent management and succession planning strategy in place.
Last but not least, in a world that is becoming extremely unpredictable with constant change in the business landscape, one of the best solutions for any organisation is to become future-proofed. This means having enough high-potential people to drive your organisation forward regardless of the obstacles or challenges thrown at you. Therefore, talent management as well as succession planning can surely offer business continuity if you can manage to plan and execute them right.
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Arinya Talerngsri is Group Managing Director at APMGroup, Thailand's leading Organisation and People Development Consultancy. She can be reached by e-mail at arinya_t@apm.co.th or https://www.linkedin.com/pub/arinya-talerngsri/a/81a/53b
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