Succession Planning Solutions

Make objective, data-driven decisions so your talent is ready to lead when you need them.

How we help.

We conduct robust, predictive assessments that serve as an input into your talent review and succession planning process. Integrating PCI's assessment into these strategic processes improves objectivity, thereby enhancing the credibility, inclusiveness, and success of your process. We can help in several different ways, depending on your needs:

Assessments Only: We can jump right in and start to add value right away by giving you objective data to compare individual profiles and developmental reports to guide their growth.
Talent Profiles: We can create summaries based on an integration of our assessment results and 360-degree feedback, as well as summary profiles that capture all the relevant information and show where the person falls in the Performance-Potential grid.
Process Design: We can provide consultation to show you how to develop a robust process, including nomination, communication, data-gathering, and decision-making tools.

Click here to learn more about our assessment approach

Succession Planning is not a nice to have. It's a must have now.

By investing in it, you will:

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.
Retain the right talent. People with a growth mindset want to know what opportunities you have to offer and the steps they need to take to get there. Transparency and visibility of robust talent review and succession planning processes help you to keep people engaged and put them on the right career path.
Fail less, save more. The data is clear - acquiring external talent for key roles results in failure more often than success. But promoting from within can also lead to bad results if the wrong people are selected or the right people are not given the right support to succeed. PCI's process will give you the data you need to make the right choices.
Be agile. 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

Benefits of PCI's 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

Our experts are here to help.

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. Contact Al today to learn more.