PLANNING FOR SUCCESSION IN BUSINESS (TRAINING HRDF CLAIMABLE)

Succession planning is a process for identifying and developing new leaders who can replace old leaders when they leave, retire or die. Succession planning increases the availability of experienced and capable employees that are prepared to assume these roles as they become available. 

Organizations use succession planning as a process to ensure that employees are recruited and developed to fill each key role within the company. Through one's succession-planning process, one recruits superior employees,[citation needed] develops their knowledge, skills, and abilities, and prepares them for advancement or promotion into ever more-challenging roles. Actively pursuing succession planning ensures that employees are constantly developed to fill each needed role. As one's organization expands, loses key employees, provides promotional opportunities, or increases sales, one's succession planning aims to ensure that one has employees on hand ready and waiting to fill new roles.

Process and practices

Companies devise elaborate models to characterize their succession and development practices. Most reflect a cyclical series of activities that include these fundamentals: