Succession Planning

We help you implement a robust, fair, and effective succession planning process to ensure that the right leaders are ready when you need them.

Talent Assessments

Most organizations recognize that having a succession planning process is important. However, many don’t know how to do it right and/or fail to make it a top priority.  So, if you’re reading this, you are one step ahead of your competition!  Like everything we do, we have planning for succession down to a science. We’re here to help you do it right and, do it right now.

Succession Planning Process Steps

An effective succession planning process requires a structured approach with well-defined steps.  For mission-critical roles below the C-suite, we group the process activities into  4 steps.  

We start by helping you to identify mission-critical roles and success factors.  Then, we conduct executive assessments and 360 feedback to help you identify successors.  Next, we partner with executive coaches to develop key leadership skills.  Finally, we guide you on how to measure the effectiveness of the process so you can continuously improve it. 

With an efficient process, well-equipped committees, and proper tools, steps 1 and 2 can be completed in 2 months. And, we can help you to do just that. 

Succession Planning Process Steps

“The PCI assessment is a key instrument in Cadillac Fairview’s talent assessment toolkit.  The assessments, and time with an organizational psychologist, provide an objective data set to support all facets of our talent processes including recruitment, succession planning, and leadership development.  Our CF Values are core to everything we do, and Deborah Bell and team have been incredible partners in aligning insights and reports to reinforce our Values behaviours that support our OneCF Culture and enable business performance.”  

– Vice President, Human Resources and Change Management

Overcoming Obstacles in the Succession Planning Process

Common reasons include concerns about how to nominate successors, how to communicate the process, and how to measure outcomes.  Indeed, these are 3 critical issues that need to be addressed for the initiative to be successful.  Click on the tabs below to see how to solve three common Succession Planning problems.

A Robust Succession Planning Process is not a nice-to-have.  It’s a must-have now.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has an interesting article about the criticality of succession planning that you can read here.  If you still aren’t convinced that you need to act now, or if you need to convince someone else, consider the below statistics.  

executive succession planning process

Fail less, save more.

Whether hiring from the outside or promoting from within without proper preparation, successors are more likely to fail than succeed.  In addition to the cost to replace the leader, failures cause disruption that leads to frustration, disengagement, and turnover. Source

Succession Planning Process

Gain competitive advantage.

With the great resignation, high turnover rates, and a shortage of qualified external candidates, the future is unclear.  By having a formal succession planning process, you will be better-positioned to fill critical roles than than two-thirds of other organizations. Source

Diversity in the succession planning process

Build a diverse bench.

Succession planning processes that lack transparency, structure, and objectivity can create systemic bias.  This serves as a barrier to diversity and the associated positive business outcomes.  A contributing factor is the use of a single nominator, which is still a widespread problem today. Source

Succession Planning Process

Retain top talent.

High potentials want to know what opportunities you will give them and the steps they need to take to reach their career goals.  Transparency and visibility of talent review and succession planning processes will keep them engaged while they prepare for future roles.  Source

The future of your organization depends on the steps you take today.  We’re here to get you started with a succession planning process today.