Succession Management

Presented by
Fariha Bin-te Iqbal
Rumana Hossain
Samsun Naher Choity
Mostafa Kamal Imran
 What is Succession Management
• The process of ensuring that pools of skilled employees are trained and
available to meet the strategic objectives of the organization.
• It is a tool to identify employee who have the potential to assume key
positions in an organization and to prepare them for future.
• “Succession planning helps build the bench strength of an organization to
ensure the long term health, growth & stability.” – Teala Wilson.
Importance of Succession Management
• Improve internal candidate pools.
• Assure Business Continuity.
• Reduce skill gaps.
• Identify replacement needs for targeting necessary training employee
education & employee development.
• Help individuals realize their career plans within the organization.
• Develops leaders more quickly.
• Decide which workers can be terminated without damage to the
organization.
• Contributes to implementing the organization’s strategic business plans.
 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-Holland)

• Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-Holland) is a humanitarian medical non-

governmental organization of French origin best known for its projects in
conflict zones and in countries affected by endemic diseases.
• Since they work on emergencies around the world, they tries to maintain a
mixed philosophy of succession management. We are going to discuss
how these philosophies affect the succession planning in such a unique
organization.
 The Evolution of Succession
Management
Replacement Planning: is the process of finding replacement employees for
key managerial positions. This section examines how replacement planning
has evolved into succession management by:
• Broadening the Focus
• Time Horizon Expansion
• Creating Talent Pool Replacements
• Improving the Evaluation System
 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-Holland)

• Finding replacement for an employee is hard, thus the organization did not
have any such guidelines present at the beginning of its organizational
operations.
• When an employee takes a leave from his work, his duties are temporarily
conducted by a probationary employee. Later, if the employee who took
leave resigns without any prior notice, that probationary employee gets
the job confirmed by the higher management.
 Broader Focus
• In Replacement Planning, the starting point was the job, whereas in
succession management, the starting point is the strategy of the organization.
• Employees are selected on the basis of long-term goals, and the
developmental plans for the employees are aligned with the strategic plans,
not position replacements.
• In MSF, the employees are selected keeping in mind the long term goals of
the NGO. The planning is based on the assumption that the responsibilities
of each position will remain unchanged for future operating years.
 Time Horizon
• The traditional planning approach was concerned with immediate and short term
replacements. (six to 12 months)
• These short term replacement perception was not applicable for over 10 yr period.
• Thus, this perspective doesn’t allow for the intake or career management of those
with different skills in growth areas.
• After ensuring that, immediate replacement are in place, succession management
looks at a longer term and focuses on a future of 2 yrs or more.
• This is not a very easy task, that lead the managers to go for talent pools
• In MSF (Holland) they provide career management policies that conduct
training for the employees to build up their skills and competencies.
• These training allow succession planning for the next six months, and
every six months these plans are renewed.
• Even though it is not a long term based structure, because of the
continuous cycles the organizational structure remains stable.
 Talent Pools
The term “pool” implies fluidity and responsiveness to the impact of forces.
Any organization needs a pool of talent and must develop many employees with
flexible job skills and competencies.
The Talent Pool is considered a corporate resource and is not the property of
individual organizational units.
This evolution from personnel planning to succession management has led to a
model of generating pools of leadership talent within an organizational context of global
competition, environmental turbulence, de-layered organizations, and new technologies.
• In MSF, when they arrange any recruitment procedure to hire an employee for
a position, at first they choose 3 best candidates for that vacancy.
• After selecting the best person, they notify the second-best candidate that
their profile is archived in a talent pool for future.
• These pools are selected to fill up any vacant positions in the higher-ranking
posts in the future.
 Rating System
• Traditional planning relied on the identification of the replacement people
by a single rater.
• Previously, only the boss of the high potential employee supplied
information about that employee, and the information on which
succession plans were based could be both out of date and unreliable.
• This process of evaluation couldn’t bring the managers into the process
and lacked the actual information of the real needs of the organization.
 Rating System (Cont.)
• In a succession management approach, several raters give current evaluations on an
employee’s performance.
• This is how the increasing use of 360 degree feedback mechanisms shed light on
various aspects of any candidate’s style and performance.
• In MSF, A 360 degree performance appraisal is used for assessment of the employees.
• Here, not only the boss evaluates the staffs, but also the subordinates, colleagues, and
supervisor(s), along with a self-evaluation by the employee themselves which is
considered for this assessment.
 Evolution of Succession Management: at a
glance
• Updated table • Traditional • Pool of talents • Traditional:

Rating System
Broader Focus

Talent pools
Time Horizon
for employee Approach: • Flexible job Single Rater
who might be Short-term. skills and (Higher
nominated • Evolved into competencies. authority/s or
when needed. long term to • Corporate boss/es
• Focused on meet the Resource. • Evolved into
the highly needs • Internal and Succession
potential • Focuses on External Management
candidates. future. Candidates. that has
• Stable future several raters.
and long term
goal.
 Providing developmental opportunities and
experience
• Management competencies are developed in succession management process
• Most common development methods-
- Promotion
- Job Rotation
- Special Assignments and Action Learning
- Formal Training and Development
- Mentoring and Coaching
Difference Between Replacement and
Succession Planning
Factors Replacement Planning Succession Management

Environment Stable Dynamic

Focus Jobs Strategy
Time Frame 6-12 months 2+ years 2+ years
Selection Criteria Job experience Competencies
Appraiser Immediate manager 360 degree feedback
Selecting Pool Internal Internal and external
Successors Stated individuals Talent tools
Development Limited Flexible, multiple
The Succession
1
Management Process
Align
Plans
with
Strategy
2
5
Identify
Monitor
Skills
Succession
and
Managemen
Competenci
t
es

4
Provide
3
Developmen
Identify
tal
High-
Opportuniti
Potential
es
Employees
and
Experiences
 Step 1: Align Succession Management
Plans with Strategy
• • Organizations must start with the business plan
• • Using environmental scanning, managers try to predict where the
organization will be in three to five to ten years
• In MSF, being a medical organization, organizational strategy is focused
on health issues. Succession management is also focused on health issues.
For example, medical doctors and nurses get preference while succession
management. So, Succession Management is aligned with organizational
strategy.
 Step 2: Identify the Skills and
Competencies Needed
• 1. Job‐Based Approach
• 2. Competency‐Based Approach
 Job‐Based and Competency‐Based
Approaches
• Job Based Approach –
• • focus on duties, skills, job experience, and responsibilities
• required to perform the job
• • Not adequate since jobs change rapidly
• Competency‐Based Approach –
• • focus on measurable attributes that differentiate
• successful employees from those who are not
• • Hard and soft skills
• • Produces more flexible individuals
The Competency-based approach is followed in MSF-Holland. Employees
core competencies are assessed while creating the pool for senior
international positions.
 Types of Competencies
• 1. Core competencies
• 2. Role or specific competencies
• 3. Unique or distinctive competencies
 Step 3: Identify High‐ Potential
Employees
• Organizations use several approaches to identify
• managerial talent, including the following:
• • Temporary replacements
• • Replacement charts
• • Strategic replacement
• • Talent management culture
Temporary replacement, strategic replacement and talent management
culture is available in MSF-Holland. But replacement chart is not available.
These approaches are used to select potential employees for creating the
pool for senior international positions.
 Step 4: Providing developmental opportunities
and experience
• Management competencies are developed in succession management process
• Most common development methods-
- Promotion
- Job Rotation
- Special Assignments and Action Learning
- Formal Training and Development
- Mentoring and Coaching
 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-Holland)

• Promotion and Job Rotation not available

• Finding out the gaps where development opportunities are available and
then arrange training
• Staff can apply for stone fund for studying in world’s top rated
universities on subjects relevant to their work
• Senior staff mentor and groom their junior staff for the future
 Step 5: Monitoring Succession
Management
• A timeframe for achieving planned actions
• Flexible adjustments to changes in strategic plans
• The sharing of information about the nomination process performance and
rankings with identified candidates
• Visible supports from top management
• The involvement of line management in the identification and
development of candidates
 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-Holland)

• A pool of high potential employees is created to be placed for the

international positions. This pool remain active for six months.
• A Career Manager sitting in the Headquarter in Amsterdam monitor the
succession management process.
• Each and every international staff has a Career Manager who are always
connected with the international staff to check their performance and are
responsible for monitoring the succession management.
Employee Role in Succession Management

• Employee relationship, commitment and participation is important

• Employee relationship with the organization is not permanent
• Employer should reward the loyalty of employees with job security
• While developing employees, their aspirations and goals also need to be
considered – customized development plan
• High potential employees must be given a reason to stay with an
organization
 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-Holland)

• Staff of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-Holland) are highly motivated

• A learning culture is developed throughout the organization where the
employees are highly interested to learn and develop themselves
• Challenge - the employee of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-Holland)
can develop themselves in a way that whenever they are applying in
higher positions in other organizations, they are selected
• Voluntary turnover rate is low
 Managing Talent : The HR Role
• Risks:
- Vacancy Risks
- Readiness Risks
- Transition Risks
• HR Role:
- Promoting a culture of talent management
- Developing successors for all key positions
- Identify gaps between current competencies and needed in future
- Encourage development of competencies at all level
 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-Holland)

• Succession management helped human resource department to avoid different

risks
• Different top positions became vacant during Covid-19 since international staff
couldn’t join
• Potential national staff were placed to those positions who were earlier trained
and experienced to cover these positions
• Performed so well that management agreed to continue those positions with
national staff
 Findings
• It was found that succession management is available in Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF-Holland) but not in a very structured way.
• Internal employees are developed for six months for being a potential
employee to be placed in the higher-level international management
positions. But, they are not just promoted, rather they need to prove
themselves being selected competing with external candidates.
• Employees has the scope to be posted in top managerial positions if they
have potentials.
Any Questions?