Retaining Top Talent: Succession Planning and Talent Development

“Succession planning and talent development is an interrelated concept of a company or an organization in which the leaders/owners have to come up with a success plan for the nearby years, they also have to make sure that both the old and the new onboard employees follow that plan with deep understanding which can be made possible with talent development.”

This method helps the organization have a pool of active, hard-working and talented employees who adapt to the new techniques with time as the business grows, and their excellent skills make the organization a success. It is also an amazing way to develop leadership roles in employees so that when the bosses step down, there’s enough talent to take care of things. 

Remember that bringing out these skills in employees with time is equally the responsibility of the organization as a part of their succession plan because we know that employees are the “building blocks” of a company’s success. 

A succession plan also makes sure that every time an employee steps down, there is another one ready to fit the role, so that the company does not have to suffer, this is where talent development comes in, to build such effective employees for the future, you need to polish their skills or in other words, train and develop them. 

For instance, Steve Jobs founded a University to help educate and train his employees and workers to understand how he developed his business and how to think like him when it comes to business, even though it is highly secretive, this university is designed to keep consistency in the Succession Plan. After Steve Jobs stepped down and Tim Cook took charge, Apple still demonstrated a commitment to their succession plan and since then, Cook has indicated that succession planning is a very important strategy to keep the succession of his organization consistent.

When Samuel J. Palmisano stepped down in 2011, IBM demonstrated its succession plan. The first CEO female CEO of the company, Virginia Rometty, was ready to take over in his place. She has been working in the company for over 30 years and because she had a deep understanding of how to keep the company going towards success.

When it comes to the succession plan, it requires a lot of brainstorming and hard work to develop such an idea for the future which will ensure the company’s success as well as the training development of the employees/ workforce with the changing time and work trends. Therefore we have a few steps on just how you can initiate and work on a succession plan and give your organization and employees a boost

Succession Plan:

Building A Proper Succession Plan: First things first, a good leader always has a succession plan in his mind, he not only thinks about success but is also well prepared for the downfalls. To cope with those downfalls, he/she always has a backup ready. The succession plan is the main part of that backup, therefore thinking about a succession plan, coming up with an idea on how to flourish it, discussing it with your co-workers, and building a proper format better which is what every leader should do.

An Overview Of That Plan: After a leader comes up with the succession plan and discusses it, he/she must proceed towards building a proper format for that succession plan, and try to avoid hurting the morale and productivity of other workers by making an employee transition as seamless as possible. After it is ready, try to make this plan as public as possible. Mention your goals and strategies so everyone can read them and try hard to be suitable candidates for those roles. This will also help in increasing accountability and motivation.

All Necessary Files/ Documents Should Be Ready: Keep track of all the necessary documents that need to be considered in this plan. It could be partnerships, agreements, contracts, etc.

Identifying The Major Roles In-Company and Picking Top Workers For Those Positions (Future): A good leader/ planner would identify the “fittest for the role” employees in his department and start working on their talent development to avoid any loss when there is a vacancy.

Creating A Database Of Workers: Creating a database of all your employees/ workforce along with their strengths and weakness will not only help you work on making them better but also help make quick decisions of a certain position is open.

Talent Development:

Identification of The Most Important Roles: To identify the most important roles is to check out all those roles which are the most important and could be prone to a lot of damage to the company in case an employee leaves off, identify those roles and create plan B for them by training potential workers, also identify the roles that are most likely to be empty in a few years and start working on potential employees to fit that role.

Set Clear Requirements For Each Designation/Position: When a leader knows which role requires what, he/she can find a suitable candidate very easily. It is best to think about the ever-changing requirements and keep a record of them. 

Using the same requirements, you can assess each of your employees to decide which one is the “best fit” for which role.

Conduct Training Sessions: Based on those assessments, communicate with your employees, and conduct training sessions for them which help build their talent and polish their skills, this makes them fit for the job. Finding out your employee's weaknesses through effective communication and trying to improve them is the best thing you can do for your company and with regard to talent development.

Succession plans and training development renders a lot of fruitful outcomes to a company/organization and thus put a company off of the risk table. These plans are used to address the changes that inevitably occur when one of the employees leaves their position for some reason. To develop an effective succession plan, leaders must initiate talent development programs in their organization because, without that, a succession plan is impossible. It is better to have a“top employee” trained than to recruit an employee from the outside and carry out onboarding steps all over again. Even though this process of management and planning is very important, it is often neglected by many organizations, it should be something that a company or an organization runs smoothly.

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