Employee turnaround is inevitable at any company, but whether you’re seeing workers quit or retire, it’s important to have a solid succession plan in place. Departing employees can lead to low morale due to disrupted workflows and increased workload on remaining employees.
The right succession plan can give you confidence in your business’s ability to thrive and give your employees something to work towards. Will you hire from the outside? Will you promote an existing employee? It’s your job to make sure no position goes unfilled in the meantime.
Did you know fewer than 40% of companies have legitimate succession plans? That’s unacceptable in this modern age where the majority of workers among millennials and Gen Z appear less committed to their companies than ever before. You have to cope with low retention rates and you don’t want to be caught without a plan in place. Here’s a list of some things to consider when creating your own succession plan:
Don’t Wait To Get Started
Start analyzing your senior employees and document their responsibilities. Use this time to identify workers with the most potential for promotions and figure out how you would fulfill their daily duties in the event any one of them suddenly left the company. This is also a great time to train more junior employees for a smoother transition in the future.
Make Critical Roles A Priority
Next, you’ll want to take a closer look at your more junior employees and their specialist roles. Is your talent pool large enough to draw from in the event of a crisis? Think about your IT staff, engineers and software developers. They might not be managers, but your company would be in trouble without their knowledge and skill set.
Ask yourself the following questions when you’re trying to prioritize roles for success planning:
- Do any of the roles require specific qualifications?
- Do any of the roles require specialist knowledge?
- Which departments will be most affected by a departure?
From Outside or Promote Within?
Employers have debated this question for decades. Promoting within vastly boosts employee morale and increases the likelihood that your workers will stick around with the company. You should always be as transparent as possible with your employees on this issue because it gives them something to aspire to.
However, hiring within the organization isn’t always the best choice. Sometimes you need a fresh perspective or someone with additional experience not currently available in the talent pipeline.
Mentoring and Training
You’ll never find the perfect candidate to fit any role. There is always going to be some level of training or mentoring involved. Identify which skills you can live without in the beginning and which skills are non-negotiable for your ideal candidate. Leaving some wiggle room for training and mentoring ensures that your new hire can bring some creativity and individuality to the position.
It’s a good idea to create a mentor program where your most senior leaders can impart their institutional knowledge to the next generation of employees. You will see a more unified work environment and it can help you identify people who would make great managers one day.
Be Flexible
Once your success plan is complete, be prepared to continuously make changes! Your business will change and that means the responsibilities of the roles within your company will change with it. Be open with your employees about your succession planning and be open to feedback from your colleagues.
The HR experts at Saudi Technologies are always here to help. Our success planning experts will work closely with you to design a customized plan that meets all of your business’s needs. Contact us today for a free consultation.
