79% of businesses recognise that succession planning will be a major issue for their organisation in the next five to ten years, according to a survey by The Journal of Accountancy, yet only 18% of them have a formal succession plan!

Succession planning can be defined as a “systematic process whereby organisations identify, assess and develop their employees to ensure they are ready to take on key roles within the organisation.”

Organisations cannot afford to underestimate the importance of succession planning and the need to have formal plans in place. Out of succession, issues emerge such as talent management, business continuity, employee engagement, staff motivation and retention and organisational development.

Here are the ten commandments of succession planning to ensure your organisation successfully plans for the future:

1. Any succession planning initiative or plan must be aligned to the medium and long-term business strategy, thus ensuring an organisation is creating sufficient talent to manage its business growth objectives.

2. Succession planning must be supported and driven by senior management to ensure and maintain talent momentum and business continuity.

3. When succession planning, always look inside, as well as outside, the organisation to identify and maximise your talent.

4. Succession planning is not always about moving upwards in an organisation. Increasingly, and in the current economic climate, moving sideways is an important part of developing organisational capability and providing personal development. It also goes a long way to retaining talent.

5. Failing to prepare, is preparing to fail – it is imperative that organisations recognise their human resources as the future success of the organisation, to which can be linked the talent, skills and pipeline of staff capable of delivering organisational objectives.

6. When looking at performance, look at potential as well. Current performance is not always an indicator of future performance, so it is prudent to test for potential. Identified and untapped potential allows an organisation to leverage future capability and to put in place resources to convert this potential into performance.

7. As well as looking outside the organisation, look outside a department or team where there is a succession issue. Succession candidates should be able to come from any part of a business providing they personify organisational values and preferred behaviours.

8. Ensure you have a plan which is clear, visible and communicated. From an organisational perspective, there is nothing worse than losing hidden or identified talent because they are not aware of the organisational succession planning or talent management.

9. Succession planning needs to be a key part of the wider employee engagement offer and should be aligned to recruitment, training, development and performance review.

10. Identify business critical roles and have contingency plans in place to ensure business continuity.

Our experience working with many organisations shows that organisations who have identified future needs and put in place a strategy to address that need, already have a competitive advantage, as general research shows that most organisations do not have a succession plan in place.

Succession planning is as much focused upon expansion as it is about replacing leavers. Having a pool of talent developing within your business allows you to move with the agility and flexibility to respond and reap emergent business opportunities.

By actively following a succession plan, employees are developed to fill unexpected gaps, to step into an unheralded departure, but most importantly to ensure the continuity and future growth of your organisation.