Succession Planning: Key HR Drivers and Metrics for Success

Author: XpertHR Editorial Team

Introduction

An organization wastes its effort and investment to establish a succession planning program if the program is not successful. Yet, many organizations can find themselves in the situation of implementing succession planning but not achieving success. A 2022 Deloitte paper reported that only 14 percent of business leaders believed their organizations successfully execute succession planning, even though 86 percent of respondents recognized its importance. To ensure a program is on track to be successful, organizational and HR leaders must understand the goals of a succession plan and how to measure and monitor success in working towards and achieving them.

While preparing for the inevitable need to replace key leaders is a major concern of succession planning, leading organizations go beyond yesterday's traditional succession planning. Their strategy extends well beyond the CEO and other critical executive positions to include all key positions, leader and non-leader, in their succession planning. Today's expanded approach recognizes a well-developed succession plan as an initiative-taking step in an effective talent management strategy, and an integral part of an organization's business strategy. It ensures that an organization has multiple candidates of top talent in place when and where needed at any time, and targets resources for the development and growth of the employees identified to be future leaders and key personnel. This allows the organization to select the best candidate from among several suited for a position, given the strategic needs of the organization.

This guide lays out the role of succession planning in driving organizational growth, key indicators and metrics for monitoring the progress and success of a succession planning program, and how to assess the development and maturity of the process.