How an Entertainment company used succession planning to avoid risks and ensure business continuity
FAILING TO PLAN IS PLANNING TO FAIL
Changes in management are inevitable; employees leaving and new employees joining in their place happens all the time in the corporate world. However, when people in critical roles leave the company, and wrong people are hired, the business may face serious risks. Therefore, it is vital to have a succession plan strategy that ensures the availability of qualified talent trained and ready to take over those jobs when the need arises.
SUCCESSION PLANNING IS KEY TO BUSINESS CONTINUITY
A big entertainment company, offering management and consultancy services for entertainment, leisure and sport projects, was aware of the importance of succession planning and the risks of ignoring this strategy. They decided to avoid wrong hiring decisions which would place wrong people in leadership roles which would eventually harm the business.
So they decided to have the right people in place ready for sudden changes in order to adapt quickly and maintain organizational stability. They chose to search within for high potential talents and prepare them to be successors for current employees at senior positions.
HOW WE HELPED
MENTOR was given the challenge to develop a streamlined process for succession planning which would ensure the flawless performance of the organization in the face of future challenges and allow new generations of talent to emerge in the workplace.
The aim was to create an enterprise-wide succession planning process which started by conducting a thorough evaluation of the job positions to determine which key positions are at risk and then develop pools of talent capable of filling these positions. Our process aimed to mitigate risks and prevent rising recruitment costs by avoiding costly replacements and Identifying high potential employees within.
STEP 1: IDENTIFYING CRITICAL ROLES
The first step in building the succession plan process was identifying the key positions at the organization which contribute to its operations continuity. MENTOR built a form that helped in the identifying process.
STEP 2: BUILDING SUCCESS PROFILES
The second step was building success profiles based on a behavioral competency framework for each critical role to explore the talent composition required based on the organizational needs.
STEP 3: FORMING TALENT POOLS
After identifying critical roles and building success profiles for each role, comes the stage of nominating succession candidates. This process aims to have a talent pool of high-potential employees who can take on a critical role immediately when a change occurs. MENTOR has developed a form to help in the succession nomination process.
STEP 4: ASSESSING TALENT
Using a talent management tool, we helped the client assess each employee’s readiness level to fulfill the assigned critical role. The tool helped in recognizing high-potential candidates and low potential ones who should be reassigned or even removed from the organization.
STEP 5: IDENTIFYING HIGH POTENTIAL
Candidates with outstanding performance and high potential were recognized at this stage.
STEP 6: IDENTIFYING SKILLS GAPS
MENTOR created a Hi-Potentials Skills Gaps Form to identify skills gaps for each high potential candidate. The skills gaps were derived from all the behaviors associated with each critical job role competencies.
STEP 7: BUILDING DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
All candidates had to develop their own personalized individual development plan which helped in closing gaps in their skills and led to their progress and readiness to fill the future job roles.
STEP 8: TRACKING PROGRESS TILL READY
MENTOR created a progress check form to help the client to regularly measure each candidate’s progress and achievement and know the right time for promotion.
BUSINESS IMPACT:
With the help of MENTOR team of consultants and professionals, our client now has the right people in the right place ready to take on critical job roles when the time comes. Our succession planning process has helped the client guarantee the continuity of its goals and strategy with the leadership of high performing staff. Our project also helped the client in minimizing the impact of losing key leaders and avoiding expensive, time consuming and challenging hiring processes of new people at key positions.
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Read more about our succession planning service or speak to a consultant to discuss the importance of implementing succession planning to your business.
