Strategic Foundations: Preparing Your Succession Planning Advisory Team for Success

This tool will help you and the Succession Planning Advisory (SPA) team guide the efforts of your first meeting. Before this meeting, the CEO should send a communication to the team about the vision for the SPA team, expectations, and desired outcomes. A second communication outlining the vision for the process should go to all employees through electronic communication, team meetings, and 1:1’s. Transparency is key to maintaining a healthy workplace culture.

First and foremost, are your Mission, Vision, and Values still relevant in today’s business landscape? Have you done a thorough job of communicating them across the organization? Do people leaders tie employee performance back to them? Do employees reference or demonstrate them in their daily work?

Create current and future org chart documents for a clear visual to assess headcount opportunities. How many new roles will be needed? What departures do you anticipate?

What do your revenue goals tell you about new roles that must be created and new skills needed to meet business needs?

Conduct a SWOT analysis.

Review key employee data for informed decision-making. What roles turnover the most? How much is turnover costing your business? Do you have employee engagement data? Do you have a clear employee value proposition if you need to go outside the company to fill roles? What do Glassdoor reviews state about working at your company? What is the market demand for key job titles?

If your company has not spent much time doing team building and leadership development, it’s recommended the SPA team participate in a team and communication skills-building session using the DISC profile which will also be a key tool in developing employees for future roles.

In future articles, we will take a look at the Talent Review Survey Tool and Critical Role Identification Tool. Please contact me if you’d like access to these documents for your organization. susan@talent-advancement.com