Today’s Hires. Tomorrow’s Leaders.

Leverage Your Investment in Talent by Planning for Succession Today

Evidenced-based, integrated, and inclusive succession planning

Succession planning needs to evolve to meet changing workforce and employee expectations. Integrating PCI's assessment into your hiring, development, and succession planning processes improves continuity and objectivity, thereby enhancing the credibility, inclusiveness, and success of your talent programs.

Gain competitive advantage. With the great resignation, increasing turnover rates, and shortage of qualified external candidates, having a formal succession planning process will position you better than the 65% of companies that don't have one.
Fail less, save more. The costs associated with acquiring external talent, which has been shown to result in failure more often than success, far exceeds the cost of developing from within. But only if you can accurately identify who your high-potentials are by combining subjective data (e.g., performance ratings in current job) with PCI's objective talent assessment, so you don't waste money on the wrong people.
Agility is key. With roles and critical skills changing at a rapid pace, organizations need to build a larger pipeline of people who have the upward mobility and versatility to move into a variety of positions in the future, even those that do not yet exist. PCI's talent assessments provide objective data on the most in-demand critical skills, such as flexibility, innovation, empathy, and inclusive mindset.

35 %

Be Competitive

Percentage of companies with formalized succession planning process in place

60 %

Minimize Failures

Percentage of executives hired from the outside that fail within the first 18 months

67 %

Be Agile

Percentage of HR Leaders that expect a significant portion of their Leadership Roles to change over the next 5 years

Why use PCI's Talent Assessment for Succession Planning?

Powerful, Objective Data Helps You Guide Careers and Plan for Succession

Past performance is not always a good predictor of future success in higher level roles. Similarly, assessments like 360-degree feedback can’t reliably predict what will happen if people are promoted beyond their current level—and can’t accurately assess their future capabilities and potential. PCI's talent assessments identify high-potential people to be groomed from within, and can accurately and confidently predict their potential for success in more demanding higher-level positions.

PCI’s process is unbiased

Research shows that ratings of potential typically reflect how raters feel about the candidate, and often aren’t objective. PCI uses an internal peer review process, involving at least two PCI assessors to rate every individual using objective and consistent metrics. In this way you can reliably rate candidates on your organization’s specific competencies.

The easiest way to measure true potential—and build on it

We conduct our assessments remotely for maximum convenience and flexibility; remote assessments are equally valid as in-person assessments but eliminate all travel costs, saving you money. In addition to accurate reports your organization can use for decision-making, each candidate will receive a developmental report and planning guide to support their ongoing growth within the company.

Using the Nine-Box to Guide Succession Planning

Confidently Use the Performance-Potential Matrix To Avoid Costly Succession Mistakes and Build your Leadership Pipeline

Avoid “blockers.” PCI can help you accurately assess low-performing low-potential employees so you can find a more fitting role—or a new company altogether.

Encourage “future stars.” Employees who perform well and show potential can transform your organization’s future. PCI can help you identify them—and work with each employee in the creation of a development plan to help them grow.

Hang on to “all-stars.” Our process will help you earmark your organization’s best players so you can confidently “give them everything you’ve got” from a development perspective—reaping benefits for your company and promoting the retention of your top talent.

Questions about PCI and Succession Planning?

Some of our key leaders will be retiring soon. How can we replace them?

With critical retirements looming, it is important to act quickly so that you don’t end up leaving key leadership roles vacant or, worse, filling them with the wrong person. PCI's process provides you with highly objective, accurate data that will help you confidently gauge succession candidate’s potential for success at the next level. Our experts can also consult with you about the nature of the roles that will need to be filled, and provide guidance about which people are best suited for which positions.
What can we do to keep top talent from being “poached” by the competition or voluntarily leaving to seek career growth?

In today’s highly competitive world of business, it’s become something of a norm for companies to try to recruit top talent from rival organizations. That opportunity exists because organizations often give promotions based on tenure, technical skills, or politics. If you’re doing the same, it means you’re not proactively developing your high-potential employees—and you’re at risk of losing great people. Our objective leadership assessments have been shown to help companies retain and develop top talent and give them the competitive advantage they need.
We have a top performer who was promoted to a senior leadership role and is struggling. Is there anything we can do?

A common and costly myth is that your top performers will continue to be successful if you promote them to the next level. Using our process to help you define career paths and make promotional decisions will allow you to dodge the “Peter Principle”—the phenomenon where people are promoted beyond their capacity because of past performance, and not based on any indication that they’ll succeed in the future. Our assessments provide you with objective data that predicts future success by measuring competencies and traits including, among others, strategic capabilities, influencing skills, and derailers—destructive personality traits that could come out when a person is given more authority or put under stress.

Learn More About Succession Planning

Discover best practices with key PCI resources

Al Schnur, Ph.D. President LinkedIn Profile

Few organizations address succession planning in a meaningful way. Systematically building your Leadership Pipeline always seems to get pushed to the next quarter or, in many cases, to the following year, if it’s discussed at all. But the consequences of ignoring it can be catastrophic. To ensure success, you need to identify your high-performing, high-potential employees and encourage their growth—before your competition does.

PCI can show you how to do just that. Learn more about succession planning to make the most of your talent pool and guide your high potential leaders through each leadership passage.

LEARN MORE