17 Benefits of Succession Planning

The accession of King Charles III, reminds us of the importance and benefits of Succession Planning.

The House of Windsor’s Succession Plan began over 70 years ago. It included the education of young Prince Charles in diplomacy, business, law, and global politics. That Succession Plan was, and will continue to be, flawlessly implemented. It has provided the new king with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for his new role.

In business and in government, Succession Planning is essential.

What is Succession Planning?

Succession Planning is a process used by organizations to identify and develop future leaders for major roles and responsibilities at each level.

Succession Plans identify and prepare leaders who will develop future growth strategies that support new opportunities. In a constantly changing global workplace, leaders must possess personal and professional competencies.

Succession Planning is the most efficient and cost-effective way to build an organization’s workforce and support its increasingly diverse culture. Succession Planning guarantees innovative thinking, planning, and resilience. Succession Planning drives an organization’s relevance through good times and bad.

Unfortunately, few organizations include Succession Plans in their Strategic Plan. Why? We believe that, at their peril, leaders are too busy. They continually chase new opportunities to improve services. At the same time, leaders must attract and retain new talent, while juggling continual workplace disruptions!

Without a Succession Plan, leaders are challenged when a sudden thinning of senior leadership ranks occur. These happen with unexpected resignations, terminations, long-term illnesses, or deaths.

Succession Planning is crucial and beneficial. It gives your organization a focused path to grow, avoid future workplace and workforce instability, and focus on its services.

Neither monarchies nor organizational leaders can afford instability!

Both must prepare for flawless transitions.

Why is Succession Planning Important?

      The 2020 Pandemic caused many organizations, like yours perhaps, to experience and suffer turmoil, just as swift change demanded all hands on deck.

Resignation is Rising

A recent Gallup Poll suggested that employees had stopped “going above and beyond” their roles and responsibilities.[1] In December 2021, 4.3M employees quit their jobs. At the close of 2021, roughly 47.4M employees had left.[2] The number of disengaged workers jumped to 18% by March 2022 and the number of engaged workers hovered at only 32%.

As of July 29, 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported job openings at 11.2M, with resignations at 4.2M and layoffs/discharges at 1.4M.[3] Those were foreboding numbers for America’s workplace and workforce. Those numbers reflected a disconnected workforce. These events required new leadership thinking.

Young Workers are being Ignored

Polling indicates that employees do not feel “cared for.”  They cite a lack of clarity in job roles and responsibilities.  They perceive few opportunities to learn and grow.  Only four in 10 hybrid or remote employees state they know what is expected of them![4]  Most disengaged workers are Gen Z or young Millennials.  At the same time, this demographic group demands a balanced work life.  They put a strong emphasis on mental and physical health and a social life bonding with their peers.

Research and worker comments strongly suggest an emerging chasm between management and employees. This chasm is caused by a lack of communication, a failure to collaborate with employees, and lost opportunities that develop and improve workplace processes and/or procedures. Research reflects that current leadership behaviors have created a lack of trust and transparency between employees and senior management. 

These issues demand new strategies, behaviors, and responses from senior management. 

Pandemic Aggravated Existing Issues

Additional issues were simmering prior to the outbreak of COVID. The Pandemic created the tipping point for The Great Resignation. A cascade of debilitating workforce issues rapidly followed.

• Repeated recurrences of COVID

• Supply chain disruptions

• Increased workforce absenteeism

• Pandemic-related early retirements, resignations, or deaths

• Diminished leadership pool

• Continuing workforce labor shortages

• Employee exhaustion and anxiety

• On-going low workforce morale

• Sudden rise of quiet quitting behaviors

• Exhausted Human Resource professionals

Importance of Succession Planning

For the foreseeable future, leadership must expect continued workplace and workforce turbulence. At the same time, competitive markets will continue to demand resilient and innovative thinking. Leaders will be expected to meet and beat the competition.

There is no time to lose. Your future leadership must be identified and trained.

Succession Planning is your answer for a secure and profitable future.

Identify your high potential employees – they are your successors. They will bring new energy to your workplace as they support and implement your organization’s Strategic Plan, its objectives, mission, vision, and values during challenging times and beyond.

The ancient Greeks said leaders must possess traits of courage, character, and capability. We believe these are the sine qua non of leadership.

Antrim Consulting will guide your organization through your Succession Plan initiatives. We are Organization Development, Change Management consultants. As Servant and Values-driven leaders, we are experts in guiding leadership growth and organizational change. That’s our business!

“One of the things we often miss in Succession Planning is that it should be gradual and thoughtful with lots of sharing of information and knowledge and perspective, so that it’s almost a non-event when it happens.”

Anne M. Mulcahy

Former CEO, Xerox

17 Benefits of Succession Planning

Succession Planning breathes new life into the workplace as it develops trusted and knowledgeable future leaders, which, in turn, will reap benefits for your organization. 

Your beneficial Succession Plan will:

1. Promote seasoned talent from within

2. Develop an agile pool of future leaders

3. Offer time to plan for leadership retirement or sudden loss

4. Identify and develop internal successors’ mentors

5. Ensure seamless leadership transition

6. Help leaders develop and sustain workforce connections

7. Provide leaders with knowledge to develop growth strategies

8. Opportunity for successors to sustain external and internal customer relations

9. Provide leaders with skills to anticipate and manage unexpected change

10. Lower cost of talent acquisition

11. Oxygenate organization-wide innovative thinking

12. Enrich employee collaboration and knowledge sharing

13. Boost employee trust in management

14. Enhance workforce commitment and performance

15. Provide opportunities to develop diversity at leadership levels

16. Provide and support organization-wide DEIB opportunities

17. Generate awareness of, and commitment to, continual workplace change

Antrim Consulting invites you to give us a call. Let us help you develop a new generation of leaders for your 21st Century business.

We offer free initial consults that will help you identify your high performers. We know a focused and robust Succession Plan will be a superb benefit and investment for the future of your organization, your workforce culture, and for the leaders who will guide your company’s financial security in the decades to come!

Why Antrim Consulting?

Implementing Succession Planning initiatives involves preparation and implementation time. Some business gurus suggest it takes years to develop high potential successors’ knowledge, skills, and abilities.

We, at Antrim Consulting, shorten that time with a highly disciplined and structured approach that provides immediate intra and inter-departmental impact. We begin by identifying and assessing your high potentials’ current competencies.

As we work with your identified successors, we rapidly close their skill gaps with new knowledge that is immediately put to use. Their new knowledge and skills will add value and immediately impact your business bottom line profitability and strengthen your workplace culture.

Using best practices, our customized Succession Plans initiatives will benefit and support your leaders’ research skills and help them acquire the tools and techniques used by successful global leaders.

At the same time, your identified high performers will develop and adopt leadership traits of collaboration, ethics, trust, and Emotional Intelligence.

Antrim Consulting aligns all Succession Plans to your Strategic Plan objectives, its mission, vision, and values.

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