The Most Critical Succession Planning Practices
"When developing candidates for succession, to what extent does your organization use these practices and to what extent do you think your organization should use these practices?"
The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) and the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) asked this question, among others, in a recent study on succession planning. The full results are examined in the ASTD/i4cp report Improving Succession Plans: Harnessing the Power of Learning and Development. An interactive chart highlighting data collected for the report is available below.
Use the checkboxes and radio buttons to filter the results based on your company size. For instance, as expected, more large companies (10,000 employees and above) utilize succession planning, but the gaps between high-performance organizations and lower performing ones are also much greater.
Other succession planning resources:
- Analysis Report: ASTD/i4cp report on succession planning
- Interactive Data (requires i4cp membership): Succession Planning
- Article: "Don't Plan Succession, Manage It"
- Free white paper: "The Five Best Practices for Developing Succession Plans"
Best and next practices for developing candidates for succession:
- Ensure that competencies for leaders align with business objectives/strategies
- Provide formal learning opportunities (classes, conferences)
- Profile leadership positions to identify desired competencies for leaders
- Involve senior leaders in candidate development
- Provide standardized learning/development programs based on organization's identified needs
- Provide mentoring/coaching
- Assess candidates' capabilities to identify learning needs
- Create custom training programs for each candidate
- Involve board members in candidate development
