In today’s competitive market place, being able to retain top talent can be one of the greatest challenges facing People and Culture teams.

What tools or processes do you have in your arsenal to ensure you are keeping your top talent inspired and incentivised to stay?

An open and transparent succession plan is a great way to give top talent a reason to pursue their career within your organisation rather than elsewhere.

What is “Succession planning”?

Succession planning is really just a process for identifying and developing talent to fill key positions in your company – particularly when you have key personnel leave and need to quickly replace them.

If your talent knows that they’re a potential candidate for a leadership position, they’re probably going to feel more secure in their role, strive to perform better to make that promotion a reality and are less likely to look elsewhere to grow their career.

Where do you start?

For succession planning to work effectively, utilising a system that measures and captures performance and potential based on your organisation culture and expectations would be a good place to start.

From there, having an achievable development plan (which is regularly assessed) will ensure your employee knows what they have to work on to get to that desired role.

It’s a great incentive for your staff to perform well. The succession plan provides the “carrot” to drive employees to achieve their performance goals.

Check out this webinar on jump starting your succession plans for more tips for how to retain top talent.

How do I communicate plans to staff & line management?

One simple method to easily visualise your succession plans is to utilise your org chart, as succession planning is directly related to your organisational hierarchy. Share the chart with the relevant personnel (generally just for their team, rather than for the whole organisation) to keep them informed of where they sit within the organisation, now and in the potential future.

How are you managing succession plans within your organisation?