Government Finance Profession

Succession Planning

All organisations, whether in the private or public sectors, need to be able to find people with the right skills to fill key and top leadership jobs.

These key roles within an organisation need to be identified, as do individuals with the potential to fill these roles in the future. Once these individuals are identified plans to provide them with relevant skills, knowledge and experience to fill this roles successfully.

A successful succession planning strategy within an organisation can only be achieved in partnership with effective Career Management, Talent Management & Recruitment strategies.

A robust Talent Management policy will help to create adequately sized talent pools from which to identify possible successors for the key roles.

These key roles will predominantly be found at the senior management level of an organisation. A robust Career Management structure with in an organisation will not only add to the talent pool at the identifying successor stage, but also stimulate progression of individuals at lower levels of the organisation. This will create a steady flow of development and progression throughout all levels of the organisation.

The existence of a succession planning strategy does not mean the exclusion of employees not identified as potential successors. Nor does it need to lead to the creation of an elite group that could alienate other employees.

The Recruitment process for the eventual appointment into the key role should include not only the identified successors but also others within the organisation with the ability to fill the key role but may not have been identified in the succession planning process.

Recommended Process

Click on the text below to view useful tools & guidance for each stage of the process.

• Identify Critical Roles
• Identify Successors & Access Readiness
• Implement Development Plans for Successors