Succession management and planning Why not working for Me

Succession management and planning Why not working for Me

Date:26/12/2016

In my search and working in developing human capital for ten years it come across of my attention the practices of Succession management and planning especially in Bahrain organizations in privet or public sector that made me share the outcome with business people.

It has become more and more important in business world since the business continues and success depends on who lead the organization and, resources and human capital. There are many practices, models, strategies and forms of succession management and planning performed by different kind of organization in different fields, some of these models and practices work perfectly and some are not?, the question is why some organization succeed and some do not is there one type of model for succession management and planning that can work for all?

The answer for this question is succession management and planning is a concept like any other human resources concepts that should reflect and align with the organizational culture, vision,  politics economic social technology environment legal (PESTEL) and strategy. Succession management is all about making sure the organization has the successors needed to make sure of successful business continuity, the model an organization can use for depends on the above mentioned and how to align it together in order to create a model that can work for the organization, there is no one size that fit all for sure.

In addition we need to understand the difference between succession management and succession planning in order to implement it properly. Succession management “Is the process of management resourcing strategy, workforce planning and analysis, skills analysis, the job filling process, and management development including graduate and high-flyer programs”. Succession planning “is Identification and development of potential successors for key positions in an organization, through a systematic evaluation process and training”. The difference between these two concepts should be aware for all decision makers and human resources implementing the program for the organization which will make it work for them, the reason is the concept is mostly understandable but the planning part is where the organization need to adopt, architect their model design and detailed the process and polices in order to make it work for the organization taking into account the these factors PESTEL, organizational culture and human capital that affect the implementation and the result of the program.

But still why some organization can succeed in succession management and planning and some cannot. For organization that wants to implement the succession management and planning there are three important questions they should ask before starting the designing the program these questions are:

1.     Why we need succession management and planning?

2.     What position we target for succession management and planning?

3.     How to identify potential successors for the program?

These three questions can help the organization to draw their road map for designing the program and make it work for them. Starting with a clear need, vision and results for the program will provide the perfect answer on how to design, how to make it work and how to evaluate the process and results for improvement.

But is that all what we need to design the succession management and planning, the answer is no, like any recipe there is always the secret ingredient that make it work and special, the secret ingredient for any HR program in the organization as well as succession management and planning is values, the values of the organization is what make it stick together and align with people working in the organization toward achieving the goal, it's the fuel that never end or stop even during the worse time and economic that organization face, values is what drive people with passion to matter what stand in there way, by incorporating values in the succession management and planning program from the design stage it will make all the difference in the implementation and outcomes  of the program since those who will be identified for the program will incorporate the values that the program aim with their values that serve the organization interest and workout for both in win/win situation no matter what the result was for the program.

Written by:

Mohamed Alzayani

Certified CIPD and IHRME Human Resources Management