Arun Lamichhane BIM1077

Succession Planning
A succession planning, is a component of HR planning and management. Succession
planning acknowledges that staff will not be with an organization indefinitely and it provides
a plan and process for addressing the changes that will occur when they leave. Most
succession planning focuses on the most senior manager - the executive director, however, all
key positions should be included in the plan. Key positions can be defined as those positions
that are crucial for the operations of the organization and, because of skill, seniority and/or
experience they will be hard to replace.
The several steps in effective succession planning are:
1. Human Resources Planning: This is by forecasting the organizations needs for
employees at upper levels are the first step in succession planning. Some staffing
needs can be anticipated, such as a known upcoming retirement or transfer. But
organizational members may leaving for other companies, retire unexpectedly, or
even die are cannot be anticipated resulting in a need to hire from outside or promote
from within. The organization should do its best to have staff available to move up in
the organization even when unexpected circumstances arise. Thus, accurate and
timely forecasting is critical.
2. Assessing Needs and Developing Replacement Charts: The second major step for
succession planning is to define and measure individual qualifications needed for each
targeted position. Such qualifications should be based on information from a recent
job analysis. Once these qualifications are defined, employees must be evaluated on
these qualifications to identify those with a high potential for promotion. This may
involve assessing both the abilities and the career interests of employees. If a lowerlevel manager has excellent abilities but little interest in advancement within the
organization, then development efforts aimed at promotion will be a poor investment.
regarding future career steps.
3. Developing Managers: The third step of succession planning, which is actually
ongoing throughout the process, is the development of the managers who are
identified as having promotion potential. In order to prepare these lower-level
managers for higher positions, they need to engage in development activities to
improve their skills. Some of these activities may include
Job rotation
Overseas assignments
Education.
Performance-related training and development for current and future roles
4. Developing Replacement Charts and Identifying Career Paths: In the final step of
succession planning, the organization identifies a career path for each high-potential
candidate. A career path is the typical set of positions that an employee might hold in
the course of his or her career. In succession planning, it is a road map of positions
and experiences designed to prepare the individual for an upper-level management
position. Along with career paths, the organization should develop replacement
charts, which indicate the availability of candidates and their readiness to step into the

Arun Lamichhane BIM1077

various management positions. These charts are depicted as organizational charts in
which possible candidates to replacement others are listed in rank order for each
management position. These rank orders are based on the candidates potential scores,
which are derived on the basis of their past performance, experience, and other
relevant qualifications. The charts indicate who is currently ready for promotion and
who needs further grooming to be prepared for an upper-level position.
Problems with Succession Planning
Succession planning is typically useful to the organization in its human resource planning,
and when done properly, can be beneficial to organizational performance. However, there are
potential problems associated with the use of succession planning are:
1. Crowned Prince Syndrome: The first potential problem in succession planning is
the crowned prince syndrome, which occurs when upper management only considers
for advancement, those employees who have become visible to them. In other words,
rather than looking at a wider array of individual employees and their capabilities,
upper management focuses only on one personthe crowned prince. This person is
often one who has been involved in high-profile projects, has a powerful and
prominent mentor, or has networked well with organizational leaders. There are often
employees throughout the organization who are capable of and interested in
promotion who may be overlooked because of the more visible and obvious crowned
prince, who is likely to be promoted even if these other employees are available.
2. Talent Drain: The talent drain is the second potential problem that may occur in
succession planning. Because upper management must identify only a small group of
managers to receive training and development for promotion, those managers who are
not assigned to development activities may feel overlooked and therefore leave the
organization. This turn over may reduce the number of talented managers that the
organization has at the lower and middle levels of the hierarchy.
3. Managing Human Resource Information: The final problem that can occur in
succession planning is the concern with managing large amounts of human resources
information. Because succession planning requires retention of a great deal of
information, it is typically best to store and manage it on a computer. Attempting to
maintain such records by hand may prove daunting. Even on the computer,
identifying and evaluating many years worth of information about employees
performance and experiences may be difficult. Add to that the challenges of
comparing distinct records of performance to judge promotion capability, and this
information overload is likely to increase the difficulty of successful succession
planning.