Succession and talent management

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Chapter 10

• Succession and talent management

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Learning objectives

• After reading this chapter you will be able to
• discuss the concept of succession management
• identify key principles for effectiveness in
  succession and talent management
• outline the six steps in a succession and talent
  management process
• identify challenges in implementing succession
  and talent management
• consider how succession and talent management can
  contribute to strategic human resource management
  in a sport organisation

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What is succession management?

• Succession management is a comprehensive set of
  assessment and development processes that support
  the attraction, development, reward and retention
  of talented individuals, from entry level
  positions through to senior management.

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Succession management

• incorporates a broad range of standardised
  performance evaluation methods and gathers
  information on employee and volunteer performance
  from multiple perspectives.
• is designed to supplement subjective manager
  judgements of potential with independent
  objective assessment data related to key
  succession criteria

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Succession management can include

• senior leadership roles
• critical roles within the sport organization
• professional or specialist roles
• entire cohorts of staff or volunteers

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Strategies for effective succession management

• Obtain support from the CEO and senior Management
• Gain line management and staff support
• Keep it simple and tailored to unique
  organizational needs
• Make sure it is flexible and linked with the
  strategic business plan
• Link it to the human resources review process
• Use well-developed competencies and objective
  reviews of candidates
• incorporate employee input
• Make a part of the broader management development
  effort
• Include plans for development job assignments
• Integrated with other human resource systems
• Emphasize accountability and follow-up.
• (Eastman, 1995)

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6 steps in succession management

1. designing the process
2. ensuring strategic integration
3. assessing the current situation
4. identifying and assessing talented individuals
5. implementation planning and undertaking
   development
6. evaluation

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1. Design the process

• define a business case for succession management
• ensure transparency and confidentiality
• build in staff feedback systems
• develop a communication strategy

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2. Ensure strategic integration

• identify roles/jobs critical to organisation's
  success
• identify distinctive leadership capabilities
• align with training and development and
  performance management systems

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3. Assess the current situation

• conduct a risk assessment of potential departures
  from existing critical roles
• determine the extent of any pending position
  shortage by projecting requirements, internal
  mobility and attrition over the next 3-5 years
• Use relevant succession and talent management
  strategies to fill the gaps identified between
  current capability for key roles and future
  requirements

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4. Identify and assess potential

• Outline the capabilities required for
  effectiveness in critical roles
• map essential skills and competencies identified
  using consistent objective criteria
• also use criteria to identify high-performance
  and high-potential candidates with advancement
  potential

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Accurate identification assessment

• Use existing performance management data such as
• biographical data
• current performance
• observed behaviour
• 360 feedback and formal appraisal outcomes
• interviews to determine career preferences
• behavioural interviews
• feedback from a range of senior managers
  performance
• external assessments such as assessment centres

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5. Implementation

• outline the types of roles or experiences which
  may be offered as accelerated development
  opportunities
• develop each individuals required capabilities
  through a program of learning experiences
• development opportunities include targeted job
  assignments, managing a project, a formal
  training program, access to a mentor etc

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6. Evaluation

• establish clear timeframes
• for the organisation, evaluation could be in
  terms of whether organisational risk has been
  reduced or minimised.
• for the individual, evaluation includes
  self-assessment about the degree of capability
  development and demonstrated changes in
  performance and behaviour in the workplace.

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6 succession derailers

1. Inaccurate information and limited choices
2. A focus on only one person for each specific role
   
3. Poor experiential development
4. Misunderstanding what is needed for future
   success
5. Failure to execute and follow through
6. Lack of accountability

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6 trends in succession and talent management
programs

1. Expand succession management to lower levels of
   the organization.
2. Do a complete success profile for assessing
   readiness
3. Assess the whole person for development purposes
4. Select/deploy talent by leveraging an aging
   workforce
5. Accelerate development through applied learning
   and mentoring networks
6. Focus/drive performance through measurement

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Summary

• Succession and talent management provides a
  process by which high potential and valuable
  staff are recruited, developed, rewarded and
  retained by the sport organization
• There are six key steps to a succession
  management program designing the process
  ensuring strategic integration assessing the
  current situation identifying and assessing
  talented individuals implementation planning
  and undertaking development and evaluation.