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“Succession planning, if driven by the HR team, tends to get this roadblock where leaders feel that it’s a matter of HR seeing them gone. A lot of it has to do not with HR’s bandwidth or HR understanding the importance, but needing to convince the leaders that it’s more about the organizational strength and the legacy of the leaders more so than it is about a replacement,” explained Prudence Pitter

Employee Well-being  featured article. 

When skills gaps are realized in an organization, it is important to  have a process to bridge them. As part of creating the process, a plan  to develop leaders should be in place, and the plan should be aligned to  the business and designed to allow for learning to happen in a  meaningful and measurable way. 

 “Some business leaders are reluctant to leave the organization and  want to control their legacy,” Pitter said. “They’re also concerned the  transition will be immediate. Leaders may assume that the succession  conversation is being held with an exit date already in mind, but  succession plans are usually two years or more away.”

 Prudence Pitter, MBA, SPHR, GPHR offered advice at the SHRM Talent Conference & Expo 2024 to help organizations start planning for the future.

𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗼𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝗰𝗲: If time and resources  are tight, pick one essential role. Start succession planning for that  one role, creating a framework that can eventually extend to other key  roles. One small step today could lead to a giant leap tomorrow.
 

“Succession planning is recognizing the talent we have today and where the organization needs to be in the future,” she said.

Despite the importance of succession planning, many organizations  lack formal plans for it due to time and resource constraints. Pitter  identified common obstacles, including executive reluctance to consider  succession and insufficient preparation of successors. HR plays a  critical role in assessing bench strength and ensuring leaders  understand the importance of planning.

"I know that, for me, when I've been at organizations in which I'm being groomed for a larger role, I want to make sure I'm doing my job really well. But I didn't consciously think about how much I was doing above and beyond," Pitter said, adding that HR leaders can use these types of studies to convince their C-suite to establish succession plans and to show employees a career path within the company.

"Many leaders are afraid to develop someone and then have them leave. For me as an HR professional, I've experienced the opposite," Pitter said. 

BEWARE BIAS IN SUCCESSION PLANNING. "Every opportunity we have to call out bias, we should. And it should not be any different in the succession planning process. … How are you as HR leaders calling that out and ensuring that you are getting leaders on the journey to make the best succession decisions?" —Prudence Pitter