Alice Chekwoti
8 November 2009
opinion
Arusha — If you have answered the above question in the affirmative, well done, you know how to manage risks. If you have answered negatively, you need to read on because succession planning is crucial in today's organisations and no organisation should sit, disregard succession planning in the hope that tomorrow will take care of itself.
Since time immemorial succession planning has always been there. Kingdoms and monarchs of times gone by, always planned on who is to take the crown after the king has died. Succession planning used to go down to the lowest ranked officials such as cup bearers, drum beatters, butlers, queen's maids and so on.
Succession planning is not a new phenomenon but its importance in today's uncertainties cannot be over-emphasised. The world has changed tremendously with the population growth, competition, rapid economic growth and the change of societal values, we see the need to plan for the future in order to avoid inconveniences.
Just to stretch your imagination, imagine what would happen if the CEO of an enterprise leaves or suddenly dies and had not prepared anyone to take charge? The organisation will be sent into turmoil during that particular time, leading to disrupted service and inconvenience to the customers.
Succession planning is all about risk management. It is in recognition of the fact that no one lasts in an organisation forever, and sometimes they move sooner than expected.
Through succession planning, you put up a substitute or build a skills reserve in case anything happens to your key staff. Most employers do not want to hear this but employees are always looking out for opportunities to move from their current employment to better places of work. A succession plan enables you to groom and train the numbers twos and number threes of each position.
Every organisation has its own succession planning challenge. Young fast moving and dynamic organisations have the challenge of young ambitious workers who do not stay in jobs for long.
These youngsters are ever sending applications and going for interviews, of cause, without your knowledge! Such organisations are not only prone to resignations but more maternity and paternity leaves as well. There is no way of knowing when this is to happen but the managers in such organisations need to have a very robust succession plan coupled with a good database of readily available new employees.
Knowledge of personnel demographics in an organisation gives an idea of age groups and gender distribution to facilitate planning. Some organisations are prone to an over accumulation of aging workers, especially organisations that have good job security in addition to good pay and benefits. In such cases workers serve until retirement. In this case managers need to groom a line of younger workers who will be in a position to take over once the older workers have retired. Also those with more young female workers will have to prepare and be ready to deploy other workers in case of maternity leave.
Note that a succession plan can never be full proof from risks, but at least it provides a working solution to challenges of sudden resignations, deaths and others. One challenging thing about succession planning is handling the over expectancy of the groomed person or the number two. Once someone gets to know that he/she is the one being groomed for a position, they may start to prepare themselves for that position, and trouble comes when they are not eventually offered the position.
It could be that they did not pass the interview or management decides that they are just not ready for a higher position. This leads to demoralisation. Should another person be appointed for that position, they may not cooperate or to just have a bad attitude towards that person. It is therefore paramount for management to know how to handle expectations.
Secondly, a lot of resources may be spent training the number two who may also decide to leave the organisation taking you back to where you were before. Some companies have bonding agreements which allow the corporation to get a refund of the money spent on training that person. While I appreciate the frustration caused by such employees I know that when a person wants to leave they will leave regardless of any bonding agreement.
In conclusion, despite its limitations all organisations must have a succession plan in order to manage risks and avoid disruption of service.
Alice Chekwoti is a Human resources expert based in Arusha
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