Succession Planning - Best Practices
Everyone should know that succession planning is essential and some cased required because of requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and standards like ISO 27000 (formerly 17799).
Best Practices include the following:
Promote Proactive Steps To Be Taken by All
Every manager and key employee should have a replacement in mind. A succession planning process should be created and reviewed regularly. If the plan is not viewed positively and does not support employee retention then it needs to be re-worked.
Use Existing Human Resource Evaluation and Compensation Systems
Existing systems drive performance of the enterprise's staff use them as metrics in the succession planning process. If the right individuals are not moved into these key positions then your performance evaluation systems are wacky. The people who should be promoted and are not not will see that and leave creating a problem for your enterprise in the future.
Use the Same Succession Planning Process Across the Entire Enterprise
If the same succession plan is in place across the entire enterprise, then cross group movement will be encouraged and people will not feel they are locked in because some is not leaving the enterprise.
